


In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream

by melonlordnation



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Among Us AU, Canon Disabled Character, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Let Toph Say Fuck, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, They're adults, but people will die, lighthearted and fun, past FWB sokka/yue, the gaang is astronauts, the laws of space as we know them do not exist, the white lotus is mission control, title from a tumblr meme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27300862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonlordnation/pseuds/melonlordnation
Summary: “The ship isn’t the problem,” came Piandao’s disturbed voice through the radio. “We’re monitoring the vessel from Earth as well as we can, and all systems are performing at peak level. There’s no good explanation as to why these malfunctions keep happening.”Sokka leaned in close to Katara to reach the microphone, which was still in his sister's enraged grip. “Well, is there a bad explanation?”“The only expl-” Iroh’s solemn voice was garbled by static.Zuko wrenched the microphone away from Katara. “Uncle, we’re losing you. What is it?”Fragments of Iroh’s voice came through clearly. “...someone aboard...sabotaging...be safe…” The radio went out completely.“Did we hear that right?” Aang looked between his fellow crewmates nervously. “Did he say someone on board is sabotaging the ship?”*Not an abandoned story, life’s just Like That right now*
Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), past Sokka/Yue
Comments: 67
Kudos: 89





	1. take your protein pills and put your helmet on

**Author's Note:**

> This is a shameless AU combining my 2020 hyperfixations. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the crewmates + weird stuff starts happening

Surely the sun shone brightly on Earth, signifying the start of a new day. In the depths of the galaxy, there was no sun to wake up the twelve crewmates aboard the spaceship- just alarms going off in the cramped cabins. 

Mai opened her eyes and was immediately assaulted by the offensive pink of Ty Lee’s space suit. “Good morning Mai!”

Mai sat up and rubbed at her eyes. Giving everyone on the ship a different colored suit was a stupid idea, but the old men in charge had thought it would be _fun._ At least they’d had the sense to give her a black suit. She got up wordlessly and stepped into her pants.

Ty Lee seemed oblivious to Mai’s half-asleep state. “Today I’ve got downloads all over the ship, and I’ve got to ‘unlock manifolds’ in the reactor, whatever that means,” she read from the screen embedded in the arm of her suit. “What are you doing?”

Mai pulled the suit top over her head and fastened it to the pants. She tapped at the screen on her own sleeve. “Fueling engines and uploading your downloads.”

She already knew what the incoming question would be. Yeah, she’d go with Ty Lee and hang out with her while they did their tasks- “task dates,” Ty Lee called them- and she told her so. Her friend squealed and wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug.

“It’s gonna be so much fun! Okay, so I’m thinking we can start in the electrical room, and then make our way to navigation-”

“Hey Ty?” Ty Lee stopped her out-loud planning and tilted her head. Mai knew she was listening, but the small movement was also just so _cute_ she nearly forgot what she was going to say. She shook the thought from her head- that’s not something friends think about each other. “Start in the cafeteria. I need coffee.”

“And a bagel.” Off of Mai’s blank look, she hurriedly added, “Or a muffin! Breakfast is very important, you know!”

Mai softly smiled in spite of herself. "Yeah, I know."

The girls left their quarters, chatting about the day; rather, Mai listened while Ty Lee babbled about whatever it was she planned on doing. When Ty Lee casually grabbed ahold of Mai's hand as they walked, Mai felt herself flush uncharacteristically and prayed her friend wouldn't notice. 

"I just think it's so cute."

Mai realized she had no idea what Ty Lee thought was _so cute_ because she'd been too busy trying to control her heart rate. "What was that?"

"The space buns! I thought they were just festive at first, y'know, because we're in space, but you do them all the time. It's cute. Makes you look less scary."

"Thanks. I like your braid."

None of it meant anything. Mai knew it was stupid and frankly dangerous to allow herself those small moments, but she found herself seeking them out more and more. Inevitably reality would set in and bring her back to the real world, where Ty Lee slid into the cafeteria table next to Azula and snuggled up close and she was just Mai's best friend. 

The real world was a _bitch._

"Good morning, Mai," Azula greeted her. Mai hummed in response and seated herself next to Zuko.

Over the course of breakfast, Ty Lee filled Azula in on the details of everything she'd already told Mai. Mai stared down at her breakfast tray the whole time, half-listening. At one point, Zuko leaned over to her. "She talks a lot."

"Try rooming with her," Mai said back quietly. It was supposed to be a dig at her, but even then Mai had to fight to keep a straight face. Of course, as soon as she got it under control, Ty Lee slid impossibly closer to her _girlfriend._ Mai stood up from the table. "I'm going to start my tasks."

"Wait for me!" Ty Lee pressed a kiss to Azula's cheek before jumping up and following Mai toward the door on the far side of the cafeteria. "You barely touched your breakfast," Ty Lee commented.

Mai kept her eyes forward. It was easier to face reality when she didn't have to battle fantasy-land, too. "I'm not really a breakfast kind of girl."

\----------

The cafeteria was quiet in the mornings. Even when the crewmates stumbled in and plopped down at a table to stuff their faces, conversation was often limited. By lunchtime, everyone was more awake and willing to talk, but it was hard to catch everyone all at once because of how the timeframes of their daily tasks were staggered. But dinner? Dinner was when the crewmates were more than likely finished with their assignments. They could sit and tell stories and crack jokes. The camaraderie of sharing those moments made dinnertime the highlight of Suki’s day. Alas, it was that awkward limbo between breakfast and lunch, meaning she'd be scraping the bottom of the barrel for decent human interaction.

Suki plucked an orange from the breakfast cart and slipped into the cafeteria table in the center of the room. Her friends would probably come through at some point on their way to a task or to grab a snack. She looked down to peel her orange and would have missed Katara walking right past her if the bright blue of Katara’s suit hadn’t caught her eye. “Hey,” Suki called out to her. “Where are you headed in such a rush?”

“The medbay.”

Suki’s senses went on high alert. “What’s wrong? Is someone hurt?”

“No!” Katara flushed slightly. “I, uh, I kind of commandeered the medbay as a research center? You know, because all of the equipment is in there anyway. I’m dying to get my hands back on those samples the drones collected from Mars’ surface.”

Suki relaxed upon hearing that everyone was alright. “Are you gonna lock yourself in there all day again?”

Katara shrugged. “Probably. I’ve got a lot of time to kill while our health screenings process, so I figure I may as well use that time digging into space junk. I’m going to try to extract water from a chunk of rock and run a bunch of tests on it.”

“Sounds fun. How are the first round of screenings going?”

“Everyone’s preliminary results show that we’re in good health. Mars apparently had no effect on our physical health,” Katara proudly reported. “I was worried about number nine for a while because there was a little bit of red dust in their oral swab, but the rest of the test showed no reason for alarm.”

As part of regulations, all twelve of them had to undergo several medical checks throughout their time in space, all administered by Katara. For reporting purposes, Katara would have to reveal private medical information to the group as a whole and to the command center back on Earth. To guarantee utmost privacy, Katara had assigned each of them a number that only she and they knew. Suki tried not to worry for whoever number nine was, but also couldn’t help from wondering how in the world they’d managed to get part of Mars’ exterior into their mouth to begin with. She also wondered whether Katara had managed to get any food into her mouth between her tasks and the extracurricular research she spent hours on every day. “Have you eaten yet?”

“I’ll grab something after everyone else leaves,” Katara tried to assure her, still inching toward the hallway leading to the medbay.

Suki tossed her partially peeled orange to her friend. Katara was so good at taking care of everyone else- she made sure her brother and Aang were awake, she demanded an automated headset to read Toph’s tasks to her, she helped others finish their tasks when they were taking a while to finish up- but she often forgot to take care of herself in the process. “Take this.”

Katara smiled sheepishly. “Thanks. I’ll see you at lunch?”

Suki snorted. “No you won’t. You’ll still have your face buried in a pile of rocks.”

Katara laughed and removed a slice from the orange. “I’ll _try_ to see you at lunch,” she amended.

\----------

“Thanks for coming back with me,” Haru said to Jet after lunch. “We’ve been out here for months. I don’t know how I still forget to grab my ID card when I leave the room.”

Jet shrugged. “No problem. I still need to swipe in, so it’s not a big deal.”

They left their shared quarters and started the trek to the administration room. The metal flooring of the ship clinked under their every step. 

“Do you ever feel like we’re in a tiny prison?” Jet asked.

Haru shook his head. “I haven’t really thought of it like that. I’ve also never been inside of a real prison, though.”

“Everything we do streams to security cameras, we have specific times we’re allowed to relax, we have to report to people who are out of touch with what it’s really like to be here.” Jet slapped the wall of the hallway outside of the admin room. “Like prison.”

“I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t be any girls on this ship if it were a prison,” Haru mused.

Jet laughed. “You’re right about that.” He leaned against the wall of the admin room and waited for Haru to swipe his ID card. “What do you have left today?”

Haru glanced at his sleeve. “I’m on asteroids and security. You?”

“Keeping us on track and starting up the reactor.” Jet bit his bottom lip. “I might swing by the medbay for a bit.”

“You feel alright?”

“Now? Yeah. But I get the feeling I’ll have a headache or something that needs urgent attention later.”

Haru looked up from clipping his ID card back to his suit and made a show of rolling his eyes. “You dirty dog. _You_ need urgent attention.”

“Hey, like you said, we’ve been up here for months. And Katara’s got all of those samples we took lined up in boxes. If she needs a big, strong man to help move those around, I’ll be there for her.”

Haru eyed Jet. “What, with those twigs for arms? Shit, if it’s a big strong man she needs, I’ll be close by in security. Maybe I should go drop in.”

Jet smirked. “Not a chance.” 

“I’m just saying. Staring at those security screens for hours could give me a real headache.”

“And I’m just saying if you walk up and the door’s closed, turn your ass around big boy.”

Haru huffed. “Man, are you ever gonna swipe in?”

Jet cackled and sauntered over to swipe his card. “You wanna crush asteroids while I’m steering? It’ll make both of our jobs go faster.”

Haru nodded. “I’m in.”

\----------

Sokka grunted and shoved at the lever attached to the upper engine. Aligning the engines sounded like a simple enough task, but when it came down to it, getting the positioning _just_ right was tedious. And somewhat difficult, because sometimes the levers were finicky. 

Light footsteps approached in the hallway behind him- probably his sister coming out off the medbay, looking for someone to talk to. “Finally got sick of staring at rocks, Katara?” He asked.

“Do you get girls’ names wrong often, or is that reserved for me?”

Sokka whirled around. “Yue!” 

Saying the wrong girl’s name while hooking up was _not_ his finest moment, especially considering it wasn’t the first time they’d done so, but it had been over a year since then! They’d ended the benefits and stuck to being friends, he was happy with Suki, and they didn’t ever have to talk about it!

Yue gave him a tiny wave. “Hi.”

“Do you have to bring that up every chance you get?”

Yue grinned. “You still get all embarrassed every time, so yes. Definitely yes.”

There she was, not a blonde hair out of place, and there he was, drenched in sweat. Sokka wiped his brow and gestured toward the engine lever. “Damn thing won’t budge.”

Yue walked over to take a peek. She arched an eyebrow. “That’s because the safety’s still on.” She reached past him and unlocked the safety bar holding the lever in place. “Be honest, how long have you been pushing on it?”

“Not as long as you think, but still longer than I should have been,” Sokka admitted.

Yue leaned against the railing surrounding the engine. "What's got you so distracted you forgot how to do the easiest part of the job?"

"I haven't seen Suki today."

"Wooooooow."

Sokka swatted at Yue's crossed arms. "Not like that! Get your head out of the gutter, sheesh. I just miss her."

"Yeah, you also _just missed her,_ " Yue made a pun. "She was just in the medbay with me and Katara."

"What?!" 

"Yupp. Guess you'll have to wait until the next rendezvous time slot opens up."

"I guess I will." Yue watched him meticulously slide the alignment lever a bit off-center. “There!” Sokka wiped his hands on his suit pants. “Where are you headed?”

“Electrical. They’ve got me calibrating the distributor today.”

“Oh, so what I’m hearing is the distributor won’t be calibrated for another hour,” he teased.

Yue lightly shoved his arm. “Shut up. Not all of us can be perfect like Aang, nailing it on the first try every time. And it wouldn’t take forever if the whole thing didn’t reset every time I made a mistake.”

“I know, that sucks! That has to be a manufacturer's defect or something.” They walked down the hallway connecting the ship’s two engines. Sokka stopped to peek into the security room. “Hey, Haru. See anything interesting?”

Haru seemed to jolt from where he was intently watching the four screens in front of him. “Oh, hey. No, nothing yet.” He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I can feel a massive headache coming on, though. Probably from staring at these screens for so long.”

“Katara’s probably got some ibuprofen. Maybe you should go see her,” Sokka suggested.

Yue stared at Sokka. For someone with such a brilliant mind, he could be really oblivious at times. She directed her attention to Haru and did her civic duty. “Ooh, definitely not. She just started the second round of health screenings. If your head’s bothering you, maybe you should lie down and see if someone else can cover cams for you. Someone like, I don’t know,” she pretended to think, “Jet? He’d be good for this.”

Sokka nodded. “Good thinking, Yue.”

Haru leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, thanks Yue,” he all but griped.

Yue and Sokka made their way down the rest of the short hallway. Yue thanked her lucky stars Sokka never questioned her comment back in security; she was _not_ going to be the one to break the news to him that his sister was hot, or that literally every guy on the ship had taken notice of that fact with varying degrees of respect.

“Well,” Sokka said as they entered the lower engine, “this is my stop.” 

Yue jutted her lip out in a fake pout. “You’re not gonna walk me to electrical?”

Sokka mocked her whiny tone. “You can’t walk twenty feet down the hall by yourself?”

Yue rolled her eyes and grinned. “Whatever. Make sure the safety’s off this time, smart guy.” 

———

Azula recognized the footsteps behind her without having to turn away from the task at hand. “Isn’t it a little late to be swiping in, Zuzu?” 

Zuko didn’t bother arguing with her over the childish nickname. “I was busy this morning. And we don’t have to do our daily tasks in the order they show up, you know.” 

“Of course not. But the command center likes to keep track of us. You wouldn’t want to worry Uncle, would you?” 

“Why would Uncle worry? It’s not like I’m not on the ship.” He didn’t want to give his uncle any reason for concern, but Azula was right- Iroh liked to keep tabs on his family, especially when they were literally a hundred million miles apart. 

Zuko unclipped his identification card from the front of his glaringly red suit and swiped it through the scanner. A little red dot glowed back at him, showing that the machine was unable to read his card. He slid the card through the track a second time, and the red dot flashed at him a second time. Zuko swiped the card yet again. The red dot blinked unforgivingly. He hit the machine in frustration.

“Slower,” came Azula’s amused voice. “It’s not going to bite you.” 

Zuko slid the card a fourth time, infuriatingly slowly, and sure enough the green light flickered on. He refused to say anything, not wanting to play into the triumphant smirk on his sister’s face, and walked around the large table toward the doorway. Just as he stepped out, the doors at either end of the hallway slid shut. 

“That’s odd,” came Azula’s voice from behind him. 

Zuko closed his eyes and counted to ten in his head. “Azula, stop it. I’m not in the mood for games.” 

“What are you talking about?"

"Open the doors."

"I didn't close them. I’ve been right here since before you came in.” 

Azula was a particularly good liar. Zuko knew that from growing up with her, but he had to admit that she sounded genuine in that moment. He stopped himself from giving her the benefit of the doubt. “Yeah, messing with the wires. You made the doors shut.” 

“I’m flattered, truly, but you overestimate my grasp on how the electrics of this ship operate. All I know is that we’re supposed to connect the wires of the same color. Really, a child could do this,” she said disdainfully, “blasting asteroids yesterday was much more exciting.” 

Zuko crossed to the administration table and flicked on the panel that showed room activity aboard the ship- whoever had pulled the practical joke would be nearby, no doubt in the storage room or mingling in the cafeteria, since those rooms bordered the admin room. 

Azula sighed. “Relax. The safety override will kick in and let us out in a few minutes.” 

The panel glowed when it turned on, showing him the yellow dots representing all of the crewmates: two in the administration room representing him and his sister, two more dots in the weapons room, three in the electrical unit, one in navigation, one undoubtedly representing Katara in the medbay, and three dots in the communications center. 

Azula, having finished with the wires, peered over her brother’s shoulder. “No one’s near us at all.” 

Zuko frowned. “Well if no one else is over here, and neither of us did it, who locked us in?” 

Just as Azula predicted, they heard the hall doors groan open of their own accord as part of the ship’s safety features. “It was probably just a glitch of some sort. I’m headed to the cafeteria to finish up with the wires.” She stepped away from the table. 

Zuko stared down at the tracking panel, stunned. Whoever was in electrical or comms may have been able to run there to evade being caught; those were the nearest rooms. But even those rooms were a good distance away. How’d they run that quickly? 

“Zuko?” He turned and saw Azula stopped at the door frame. “You may want to get out of here before the doors decide to lock you in again.”

\----------

Toph grumbled under her breath as she flipped the lever to send trash from the oxygen center to the storage unit. Trash duty. _Again._ The few first times she’d been assigned this task, she hadn’t thought much of it. She even kept her mouth shut when she noticed she had that job more than anyone else. But three days in a row? That was excessive. Hearing her friends chatter about navigating the ship and starting up the reactor got old really fast, especially when her headset, lovingly named Space Brain, read “Take out trash in O2” aloud. 

The trash chute made a soft _ding,_ letting Toph know it was empty. Just as she reached out to slide the trash lever back into position, a different kind of _ding_ blared throughout the ship. The ship’s speaker system kicked on: “Oxygen levels depleting in 30...29…” 

Oxygen levels doing _what?_ Toph raced toward what she knew was the main oxygen tank and flipped open the keypad. They had been trained for emergencies like this. All she had to do was get the code and override the malfunction. She just needed to keep calm. Someone else would show up and probably take over punching in the code, anyway. “Space Brain,” she spoke to her headset, “I need today’s O2 code.” 

“Today’s O2 code is: 772609.” 

Toph ran her fingers over the keypad, looking for the seven. Her headset was a world of help while performing usual tasks on the ship, but its soft volume wasn’t helping in this instance- it was hard to locate numbers on a keypad while hearing the alarm and the countdown to imminent death over the ship’s speakers and trying to _breathe_ when the oxygen was rapidly thinning. The tanks attached to their suits wouldn’t kick in until the ship’s oxygen was depleted, and then they’d only have about an hour of oxygen each. Horrified, she realized she would likely be the only one alive long enough for that to happen. Space Brain was attached to her helmet so she kept it on at all times, but her crewmates had no reason to wear their helmets around the ship. Where were they, anyway? 

The alarm kept blaring. “16...15...14…” 

What was the code? 772-something. 9? Or was that part of the countdown? She typed in the rest of the code, and when she hit the submit button, the oxygen tank droned at her. She'd typed it incorrectly, and now there was even less time to get it right.

“Move,” a strangled voice said to her right. 

Toph was weakly shoved to the side, but it didn’t take much strength to move her, considering how lightheaded she already felt. She fell to the floor and heard six buttons get pressed just as the ship’s speaker announced “6...5...4…Oxygen levels restored.” 

She sat on the floor gasping with whoever had come in; normally she’d be able to pick out exactly who it was from either their footsteps or, more obviously, their voice, but she was still recovering from losing air so quickly. Then came the sharp, strained voice across from her. 

“What happened?”

Her brain registered the voice as Aang’s. She breathed heavily. “I don’t know. I was taking the trash out and then I heard the alarm go off.” 

“Did you bump into something?” 

Toph whipped her head in his direction- a bad idea while still regaining stability. “What?" 

“Did you bump into something while you were doing the trash?” 

“No, I didn’t.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“What kind of a question is that? The trash chute is all the way over there, and the oxygen tank is all the way over here.” 

“We almost died.” 

"No kidding." The terrible realization set in. Toph pushed herself to her feet. “Wait. Do you think that’s my fault?” 

She could hear Aang work to soften the tone of his voice, ever the peacemaker. “The malfunction had to come from here. I’m not saying you did it on purpose-” 

“I didn’t do it at all.” 

“-but it may have happened by accident. You even admitted you were in here when the countdown started.” Aang lowered his voice. “Look, I won’t tell anyone, I promise. But I know they didn’t do a good job of making this ship disability-friendly. If you need help, you just have to ask, okay?” 

Toph shoved him away from her. “I don’t need help. I’m a fucking pro at trash duty because they barely let me do anything else, okay? You think I don’t know why they keep sticking me here? Yeah, let’s give the blind girl the easiest job on the fucking ship so she can’t mess anything up.” 

“Toph-” Aang was clearly taken aback by her outburst, and maybe he didn’t deserve it, but the casual ableism on the ship had gone far enough.

“And you think that after being given such a simple task I’d still find some way to fuck that up and almost kill everyone? You don’t exactly sound disability-friendly either.” 

She heard him scramble to his feet. “Toph, I’m sorry-” 

“I don’t want to hear it.” She stomped out of the doorway. 

Aang slid back to the floor and put his head in his hands. “I’m so _stupid,_ ” he angrily announced to the empty room.

\----------

The twelve crewmates convened in the cafeteria for an emergency meeting. 

“What happened with the oxygen?” Sokka asked. “We’ve got to report it to the command center, and they’re going to want to know how it happened.”

No one spoke up. Aang glanced over to Toph, but she kept her helmet pointed toward the table.

“I’m sure it was just a fluke,” Mai broke the silence.

Katara was bewildered by how disinterested Mai sounded. “A fluke that nearly killed us?” How dire did their situation have to get before the girl showed any sort of emotion?

“Yeah,” Jet agreed, “that doesn’t seem likely. How are you so sure, Mai? Where were you when it happened?” 

Mai narrowed her eyes at Jet. “I was in the lower engine with Ty Lee. Why does it matter?"

"Maybe it was your fault and you're trying to cover your ass."

Zuko interjected, thoroughly upset by Jet's wild accusation. "Yeah? And where were you?” 

“I was in the reactor." Jet looked between Mai and Ty Lee. "Does it take two of you to refuel the engines?” 

“Hey,” Sokka interrupted. “Focus. We’ll say it was a fluke; there’s not a better answer. We’re clearly a little shaken, but we got it under control. Who entered the override codes?” 

Ty Lee piped up. “A lot of us ran to go do it, but the cafeteria doors shut when we got up. We were locked in.” Voices from all around the table confirmed her statement. Azula and Zuko met eyes.

"Wait, the doors just shut on their own?" Sokka asked.

Azula looked from her brother to Sokka. “That happened to us earlier in admin.” 

“I thought it was a prank, but it happened to me again,” Zuko said. “I went back into admin right before the oxygen started dropping, and the hall doors locked while I was in there. I put in the override code for the oxygen malfunction but I couldn’t get out to go enter the other one.” 

“I entered the code in O2,” Aang finally spoke up. “No one else was there.” 

Toph picked her head up at that, but still didn’t say anything. What was he doing? Trying to make up for his bullshit from minutes before? What was she supposed to say if asked where she was?

“You’re sure?” Sokka asked Aang. 

Aang nodded. “Yeah. It was just me.” 

Sokka pressed his palm to his forehead, frustrated. "Okay, so we've got faulty doors and a _potentially_ faulty oxygen tank. Has anything else on this ship been giving anyone else trouble?"

"Zuzu picked a fight with the card scanner earlier, but don't worry, I think it was a personal issue," Azula joked.

Haru nudged Jet. "See? It's not just me!" 

Suki rose from the cafeteria table and put a hand on Sokka’s shoulder. “I’ll go with you to report it to the command center,” she said softly. “So you don’t have to do it alone.”

Sokka cleared his throat. “Right. We’ll go report, everyone else, just, uh, go back to what you were doing.” Sokka refused to give Yue any sort of personal satisfaction by looking in her general direction- he reached for Suki’s hand and they left the cafeteria. 

As soon as their footsteps faded in the distance, Toph jumped up from the table and stretched deeply. She'd been through this before and had no desire for a repeat performance. "Well," she announced, "that’s my cue to take a nap.” 

“Are you done with your tasks already?” Katara asked in her mom voice. 

“Nah, I still gotta go to storage and release the trash into the void.” 

Aang cringed at the description of their waste disposal method. It was supposedly "proven" that the trash would burn up and disappear if it reached a certain velocity, which it surely would when it got sucked into any nearby orbits, but he still hated the thought of just releasing trash into space.

Katara pressed on. “Then why are you taking a nap?” 

Toph cracked her back and grinned. “Are you kidding? I’m not going anywhere near comms until they’re done _reporting_.” 

Katara scowled over the suppressed giggles around the table. “That’s disgusting.”

“What, you don’t believe me? Give it five minutes and walk down there yourself. But I'm warning you," she grinned wickedly, "there's no door outside of comms."

“Five minutes? That’s generous, Toph,” Jet quipped. He quickly added, “For him. Not for me.” He elbowed Haru when he coughed something that sounded suspiciously like "two-pump chump."

Katara stood up from the table. “That’s it, I’m going back to my rocks. Don’t come in unless it’s an emergency.”

Yue joined Katara in standing- her second act of solidarity of the day. "You heard the man. Back to work."


	2. did you fall from a shooting star (one without a permanent scar)

“I think she’s getting suspicious.”

Jet cut his eyes to Zuko as they left the cafeteria. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of how much time you spend in the medbay,” Zuko said, not particularly caring if anyone was around to hear him. “No one gets sick that often.”

Jet chuckled. “That’s not called suspicion, that’s her picking up my vibe.”

“Your vibe,” Zuko repeated, bordering on disbelief. “Sure. You can call it that.”

Jet stopped walking to fiddle with the touchscreen on the ship’s defense mechanism. He covered his ID code with his hand while typing it in. “Yeah? What would you call it?”

“Inappropriate, for starters.”

“There’s nothing wrong with harmless flirting.”

“She’s got a job to do, just like the rest of us. Every second she spends fixing up your fake injuries she could be spending on more important things.”

“Like what, you?” Jet tapped at the screen in front of him. He hadn't planned on harassing Zuko today, but Zuko followed him, and Jet wasn't one to pass up an opportunity when it knocked. He took pride in Zuko's stunned silence. “No comment? Come on, I see that look you’re giving me. You’re just jealous.”

Zuko crossed his arms defensively. “There’s nothing to be jealous of!”

Jet nodded smugly. “So you’re getting it from somewhere else. Let me guess- tall, dark, generally seems void of life?”

It didn't take Zuko long to figure out who Jet was referring to. “Mai?”

“I see it. She seems like your type.”

Zuko took a step toward Jet, shortening the gap between them. “What do you think my ‘type’ is?”

Outside of the ship, the shields whirred and slid into position. Jet turned to face Zuko, closing the gap between them, and with much more confidence than someone inches shorter than his brooding crewmate should have had, said “Someone who could easily kill you and chooses not to.”

Zuko raised his eyebrow. There was no way he was backing down from this fight, however childish it was. “This is coming from the guy trying to get with who again? Katara? The one person on this ship who knows more about the human body than anyone else and had even Pakku’s knees shaking when she raised her voice? It sounds like you’re projecting, buddy.”

"I'm not one to judge. Powerful women are hot, and this ship is loaded with them. The difference between us is that I see knowledge of the human body as an asset and you see it as a threat. But maybe you're into that." Jet pushed past Zuko and changed the subject before Zuko could think of a good comeback. “So how is Mai?”

Zuko shrugged and fell into step next to Jet. “I don’t know? Doing good, I guess?”

Jet put his hand out in front of Zuko, effectively stopping him in the hallway. He lowered his voice. “Wait, so that’s not a thing?” 

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why do you ask me things like this?”

“Because _buddy_ ,” Jet repeated the nickname from earlier, enjoying the blush traveling down Zuko’s neck. “I care about you. And it sounds like you’re missing out big time.”

They continued their walk down the long hallway from the shields controls to the lower engine. Zuko sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t think she likes me very much? We spend a lot of time together because she’s always hanging around Ty Lee, and Ty Lee’s with Azula, but that’s pretty much it.”

Jet groaned pitifully. “I take it back. You’re definitely missing out on all of that.”

Zuko wrinkled his nose. “That’s my sister.”

“Obviously not- dude, seriously, what kind of a person do you think I am?" Jet flicked Zuko's shoulder. "Obviously not Azula. But Ty Lee?”

“I hate to burst your bubble,” Zuko said dryly, clearly taking pleasure in bursting Jet’s bubble, “but Ty Lee’s a lesbian. And she’s with with Azula. So even if she did like guys, I don’t think I’m allowed to do that.”

“Not if you’re a coward. But hey, you do you. Let Mai slip through your fingers. I’m going after what I want, and I think I’ve got a pretty decent shot.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. “Sure you do.”

“I’m telling you, I’ve got a thing going with Katara.”

“And if I asked Haru and Aang, they’d probably say the same thing. Get real, Jet. She’s out of your league.” Zuko turned into the electrical room, ready to be finished with the conversation, but Jet was hot on his heels.

"Haru couldn't seduce his way out of a paper bag. And what's this about Aang?"

Zuko flipped open the distributor panel and stared at the spinning circles. "Oh, is he the dark horse in this race?"

Jet scowled. "He's a kid."

"He's 22, Jet. The younger, balder, better-intentioned version of you." Zuko pressed the first button on the distributor, successfully calibrating the first ring. _One down, two to go._

"What do you know about my intentions?"

"More than I ever wanted to, believe me." Zuko looked over his shoulder. "Do you mind? I need to focus."

Jet stepped right behind Zuko and waited until the second circle on the distributor was almost in place for calibration to whisper in his ear. "What's wrong? Do I make you nervous?"

Zuko missed the calibration and watched hopelessly as the first circle began spinning again and the bottom two circles shifted their alignment. He swatted Jet away from him. "Go fix the engines or- or something."

Jet made a whip motion with his hand, complete with a vocal sound effect, and left the room grinning.

\----------

Of all people. Of all of the people on the ship, Azula walked into the cafeteria while Mai stood in the back corner connecting the wires in the fuse box. Mai didn’t have anything to say to her, so maybe if she just kept her back turned and looked really busy, Azula would just keep walking and there wouldn’t be any forced niceties.

Instead, Azula made her way to the trash chute and flipped the lever to send the trash out of the chute. “Did you see the way Zuko accused me of causing the problems with the ship last night?”

Mai was not in the mood for drama, or gossip, or family affairs. She wasn’t even sure she remembered the specific instance Azula referred to. But she couldn’t just ignore Azula or else she’d become the topic of conversation by the end of the day. “Yeah.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into him. We antagonized each other as children but I’d thought we’d grown up since then.” Azula smacked her lips. “Some things never change. He’s always been wound up so tightly. He needs to calm down.”

Mai stared into the fuse box and strung the blue wires into place. She could feel Azula’s piercing gaze on her back.

“Well?”

Oh. Azula expected input- not like Mai had anything to say, anyway. “Well what?”

“You seem calm under that cold exterior. I think you should go for it.”

Mai peeked over her shoulder in Azula’s direction and immediately regretted it. She turned back to the fuse box, where a yellow and pink wire were tangled together.

“Don’t give me that look; it’s a compliment. I wouldn’t try to set my brother up with just anybody.”

She could stick her finger in a socket, or she could slam her head in the fuse box, or could run into the medbay- something, anything to get out of this conversation. “I’ve never really thought about it.” Mai had thought about Zuko plenty of times- about his stupid but admittedly comfortable white t-shirts, and how they used the same toothpaste, and his dorky, rare smile. If she weren’t so hung up on Ty Lee, maybe she’d give him more of a thought. But Azula didn’t need to know any of that.

Azula watched the ship’s trash float around outside of the ship. “Well, think about it. It could be fun for you. And then the two of you wouldn’t be third and fourth wheels to me and Ty Lee all the time.”

She knew Mai would need to warm up to the idea, but she honestly had anticipated this conversation flowing more smoothly. Mai clearly had reservations, but why? “What, is it the scar?”

Mai dropped the newly untangled wires, shocked, all memories of soft t-shirts thrown to the side. “Azula!”

“Oh, don’t pretend it’s not noticeable. You wouldn’t be the first to run away because of it.”

Mai had never thought about that before- how strangers from dating apps and at bars might show interest until Zuko faced them. She wasn’t particularly invested in his life, _because why should she be_ , but the thought still left an unpleasant feeling in her stomach. “That’s terrible.”

“It really is,” Azula said, a twinge of compassion in her voice. It vanished almost immediately. “But you’re not like other girls, are you?”

Azula always had an agenda. There was no way she was trying to play matchmaker out of the kindness of her heart. Mai connected the yellow wires and closed the fuse box. “I guess not.”

Mai darted out of the cafeteria and disappeared down the medbay hallway. She’d find solace in the quiet of the security room no matter how uninteresting watching the cameras was.

Time seemed to pass slower behind the cameras. Maybe it was because she had to watch every second on the screen tick by, or because there was absolutely nothing happening on the cameras other than various crewmates walking past sporadically. Aang made goofy faces when he passed them, Toph flipped off the general direction of the cameras, and that was pretty much the highlight of Mai’s day, which she thought was tragic.

Not long into her shift there was a rap on the doorframe. “Have you thought about it?”

Mai inwardly groaned, trying not to let her frustration show. “It’s been an hour, Azula.” She swiveled the rolling chair around to face the other girl.

Azula inspected the door frame for stray oil droplets before casually leaning against it. “Really? It feels like longer.” Spirits help her, she couldn’t push away the nagging feeling that this was somehow the right thing to do. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Look, the only reason I ask is because Ty Lee seems to think you’re unhappy, which makes her unhappy, which makes me unhappy. Her logic is that if you had what we do you’d smile more, which I’m doubtful of, but I’m curious to see.” She gestured broadly to Mai with one purple-gloved hand. “Zuko was her idea; something about him being the obvious choice. I took a moment to warm up to the idea, but I trust her judgment. And I trust you. You could be good for each other.”

“I said I’d think about it, okay?” Mai turned back to face the cameras.

“Of course. But Mai?” Azula waited for Mai to glance over her shoulder in some form of acknowledgment. “When I had to think about the two of you, it only took me twenty minutes to reach my decision.”

She couldn’t wrap her head around what Mai’s hang-up was. It clearly wasn’t anything as shallow as physical features, but it didn’t seem to be deeper than that, and with how much Ty Lee gushed about how _their auras are the same color_ , she thought Mai would have jumped on board more quickly. If time to think was what she wanted, fine- she could have it. Azula stepped out of the doorway to return to her business and leave Mai to brood in solitude.

The security room door slammed shut behind Azula. She turned around and put her hands on her hips. “Very funny, Mai. I’ll leave you alone.”

Azula didn’t expect any sort of response from Mai. She certainly didn’t anticipate her friend to say “I didn’t do that.”

“Well I didn’t either.” Mai heard something resembling panic, or at least moderate alarm, seep into Azula’s voice. “Mai, you have to believe me. I didn’t do this.”

Then Mai remembered what Azula had referenced earlier, how the same thing had happened to her and Zuko the day before and he’d accused her of doing it. “I know.”

“You just have to wait for the safety override to kick in and the door will open. Or I can try to find Sokka? He’ll want to report this anyway.”

Mai softly banged her head on the desk. “It’s fine, Azula. We’ll report it tonight.”

“I’m going to stay here. If for nothing else, then to prove my innocence later.”

More soft head bangs. _Please just go away._ Mai glanced up to the large screen in front of her, divided into four quadrants. Whoever had placed the cameras on the ship was an absolute moron. One camera outside of the medbay, one in the hallways outside of navigation and electrical, and one outside of the security room of all places. Only four cameras on the whole ship and they were essentially useless- Katara kept a log of who entered the medbay, whoever was in security could obviously see and hear what was happening right outside of the room, and the crewmates generally avoided the other rooms unless they had business in there.

Azula’s muffled voice came through the door again. “Mai, I don’t mean to alarm you, but when Zuko and I were trapped in admin the doors opened much quicker than this.”

Somehow, having Azula trapped outside of the room was worse than when she’d been bothering Mai inside of the room. Mai minimized the cameras on the computer screen. “Let me check something.” A few opened files and right-clicks later, she found what she was looking for. “I can see the safety override countdown. It’s got about six minutes left.”

“Six minutes left?” Azula sounded puzzled, which was odd because she always seemed to know what was going on. “The override is supposed to take five minutes in total.”

“I know,” Mai deadpanned.

“Well can you make it go any faster?”

“You’re asking me to override an override.” Which, technically, Mai knew she could find a way to do, but technically also wasn’t allowed to do. “By the time I figure it out the door will have opened on its own. You can leave.”

“Are you sure?”

Like Azula wasn’t itching to leave anyway. Mai reopened the camera footage tab. “Just go.”

\----------

_Clink. Clink. Clink._

The snow back home never made _clinks_ when Yue’s boots made contact. It was soft, her boots sunk into it, it was cold in the best way, and it was just so _home_. The metal of the ship was a different kind of cold. Not necessarily a bad cold, Yue thought as she rolled over in her bed, but a constant reminder that she was farther from her family than she’d ever been. She wondered if her father was reading the letters she’d written before departing, and if Hahn had gotten married while she was gone, and if any particularly strong blizzards had swept through town during the colder months.

Yue didn’t think it was possible to miss blizzards until she hadn’t seen any kind of weather for months.

The _clinks_ stopped outside of the door to her quarters, and then there was a knock on the door. “Yue? You in there?”

She rolled to face the door. “Yeah, it’s unlocked.”

The door swung open, revealing Aang’s smiling face. “My downloads finally finished. The flashdrive is all yours.”

Yue swung her legs over the edge of the bed and pushed herself upright. “Thank you.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Aang set the flashdrive down on Yue’s bedside table.

She shrugged. “Just a little tired, I guess. I don’t know why though. All I did today was set our course after Zuko mapped it out.”

“Want a pick-me-up?”

Yue didn’t know what she had expected when Aang asked, but when he pulled a fistful of Pixy Stix from his orange pants pocket, she couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure. A blue one, please.”

Aang smiled. “Hey, those are Katara’s favorite, too!”

“My first upload is in the cafeteria. I’ll bring one to her if you have any blues to spare.”

Aang picked a few of the blue sugar packets from the bunch. “I try to ration the blues, but I’ll make an exception for you two.”

Yue tore open one of the small packets and dumped a pile of sour sugar onto her tongue. “Thanks.”

Aang shifted his weight. “Hey, have you seen Toph? I really need to talk to her.”

“I haven’t left my room since this morning, sorry. If I see her, I’ll let her know.”

Aang’s shoulders slumped. “Okay.” He lit back up almost immediately. “Tell Katara I said hi!”

She finished off the candy and tossed the trash into the small can next to her bed. “I will.”

Yue was sure Aang would be delighted to know how excited Katara got over the small treat. She ripped into the packet with a grin on her face. “He’s so sweet,” she said, but it came out as “Heeth tho thweet” because she was trying to see her blue tongue.

“Will you come grab dinner with me?” Yue jerked her thumb toward the cafeteria. “I have to keep an eye on the cafeteria once the upload starts. Wouldn’t want the flashdrive to go missing.”

Katara hopped up from her chair. “Sure. Can we sit at the middle table so I can watch the medbay too?” She bent down and squinted at a row of vials of blood. “This is the first set of round two of the health screenings; they’re being processed right now. This is the longest part of the job, just waiting for the system to analyze the samples.”

“We can sit wherever you want.”

They shared tidbits about their day over dinner. Yue admittedly hadn’t done much, but she was content to listen to Katara talk about her progress throughout the meal.

“The water I pulled from the rock is really murky,” Katara slurped up a spoonful of soup, “not very viable on its own. Needs a lot of filtering. Like, scientifically it’s definitely water, but personally I’d barely call it that.” She wiped her mouth and blushed. “I’m sorry, I’ve been talking forever. That’s probably way more detail than you wanted.”

“No, it’s okay!” Yue put her hand over Katara’s on the table. “I like hearing people talk about things they’re passionate about. Besides, even if I don’t understand everything you’re saying, you’re way more interesting than staring at the same upload screen for three days.”

“Well if you want company for the next few days, I’m right there in the medbay. It’ll be nice to have you around.”

“I’ll help keep the unwanted visitors away,” Yue joked.

Katara laughed. “I don’t get unwanted visitors.” She gestured with her spoon as she spoke. “I mean, the other day Jet came in asking if I needed any help, and I think I offended him when I told him he couldn’t help me? He doesn’t have any sort of medical training, that’s all I meant. But then he stayed and hung out for a little while so I don’t know if I actually hurt his feelings?”

Yue squeezed Katara’s hand. “Katara, you’re a kind person.”

“Thank you?” Katara returned the spoon to the now-empty soup bowl.

“Some of the guys on board aren’t always-”

All three cafeteria doors slid shut. Katara leaped up from the table, knocking over her empty bowl. “Shit.” She ran toward the locked door obstructing her view of the medbay and pounded on it with her fists. “Hey!”

And then the whole ship violently lurched. Katara fell backward onto the floor but jumped back up, desperate to pry the door open. Yue gripped the table she sat at for dear life as the ship continued to shake. She watched Katara slip again. “Katara it’s closed- you can’t get in there. You need to hold onto something!”

Katara righted herself, determined to fight. “All of my stuff is just lying out, it’s not held down by anything!”

“It’s too late now!”

Katara grabbed onto the nearest table for stability just as something slammed into the ship. Seconds later, it was as if nothing had ever happened- no turbulence, no jerking around, nothing. As soon as the cafeteria doors opened she sprinted to the medbay. “Great,” Katara groaned, “Yue, don’t come in here, it’s a biohazard. Two of the blood samples shattered.”

From her spot at the cafeteria table, Yue held up a thumbs-up even though Katara couldn’t see it. “Okay.”

Across the cafeteria, Sokka ran in from the weapons room. “Is everyone okay?”

Yue wiggled her fingers, trying to loosen them up from her white-knuckled grip on the table moments ago. “Yeah, we’re fine, but Katara just lost days of progress.”

Katara’s voice came from the medbay. “I’m going to clean this up and get whoever’s on security to temporarily lock it down. Everyone needs a medical check in right now.”

Yue looked to Sokka. “What happened?”

Sokka shook his head. “I don’t know. I was sending trash from O2 to storage when that first big jolt happened. I went and got the asteroids out of our path, but I don’t know how they got there to begin with. Aang cleared our path hours ago.”

Yue cocked her head. “He didn’t mention clearing asteroids when we talked earlier.”

Sokka didn’t seem to hear her- his gaze was focused on the large, red button in the center of the middle cafeteria table. “Great. Another emergency meeting, more shit to report to mission control, and we have to do medical check ins.” He looked at Yue, his trance broken. “Pakku was pissed when I told the command center about the O2 malfunction a few days ago. He’s not gonna like this.” He pressed the button.

\-----------

The crewmates raced to the cafeteria when the emergency alarm sounded. 

“What the hell was that?” Haru asked when he entered the room, Toph in tow.

“We hit a patch of asteroids,” Yue said, scooching over so he could sit next to her. “Maybe we got off course? I set our path this morning, so maybe we just took too long to align the engines and veered off.”

Ty Lee shook her head, ponytail whipping behind her. “I aligned the engines right after breakfast.”

Sokka held up a hand. “Hold on, we’re missing people. One, two…” He did a quick head count. “I’m nine. Where’s-?”

“ _Motherfucker!_ ”

Toph snorted and tilted her head toward the door nearest to the medbay. “I found Jet.”

Jet burst into the cafeteria looking agonized. A dark black mark was seared into the forearm of his brown suit. Katara jumped up and met him at the entrance. “What happened?”

“Engine burn,” Jet gritted out. “Went over the guardrail a little when whatever the fuck _that_ was happened.”

Katara grabbed Jet by the uninjured arm and sat him down at a different table. “Medbay is out of commission right now, I’ll be right back. Stay here.” She sped off into the hallway.

Suki stumbled into the cafeteria through the door by the admin room, leaning onto Zuko.

“I found her in comms,” Zuko explained, quickly scanning the room. “Where’s Katara?”

“What’s wrong with her?” Sokka rushed over to them.

“I fell,” Suki said, sounding a little dazed. 

Zuko adjusted his grip on her. “She was lying in the doorway. I think she got knocked out.”

“‘m fine,” Suki insisted, pulling away from Zuko. She lost her balance almost immediately and would have hit the floor if Sokka hadn’t caught her.

“Come on.” Sokka swept her up in his arms. “We’re just gonna lay down on this table, okay? Katara will be here in a second. You’re gonna be okay.” She _had_ to be okay. She had to. He set her down on top of the table Jet sat at in the corner. _Spirits have mercy._ He reluctantly went back to the center table once Katara returned, never entirely pulling his focus away from Suki. “So we hit some asteroids.”

Aang’s jaw dropped. “That’s impossible.” He turned to Sokka. “You were there when I cleared our course earlier.”

Sokka nodded. “I know.”

“Then how did that happen?” Aang looked around the table. 

Azula filled him in, locking her fingers with Ty Lee’s. “We don’t know. Yue put us on course and Ty Lee aligned the engines. There shouldn’t have been an issue.” 

“The hell was Ty Lee doing aligning the engines?” Jet hissed when Katara rubbed a salve on his burn. “That’s what I was doing.”

“But that was my task.” Ty Lee pulled up her to-do list on the screen in her sleeve. “I have it right here.” Sure enough, ALIGN ENGINE OUTPUT was written in bright green, signifying she’d completed that job. 

“It was definitely a navigation issue,” Haru interrupted, getting back on topic. “When I walked past, we were really off course. I had to restabilize the steering.”

“But I did that this morning,” Yue repeated insistently.

“Just like I did the asteroids this morning.” Aang looked around the table. “What’s going on?”

Zuko turned on Azula. “Is this still a part of the prank? Like when you locked us in admin a few days ago? Because it’s not funny.”

Lightning flashed in Azula’s eyes. “Don’t even try to blame me for that. We were trapped together. Mai knows; the security door closed on its own earlier. And before you ask, no, I wasn’t on wires today. She was.”

Ty Lee’s eyes widened. “So was I.”

An eerie silence filled the cafeteria. 

“So.” Toph rested her elbows on the table, finally contributing to the conversation. “We’re getting assigned the same tasks now? That doesn’t sound like something the command center would do.”

“It’s not,” Jet said as he joined the crewmates at the center table, his sleeve rolled up to show the layer of gauze Katara gingerly wrapped around his forearm. “Something’s messed up.”

Katara helped Suki sit upright and held up a finger for her to follow with her eyes. “In other news, I have to restart the second round of health screenings. I lost some of the samples in the crash.”

Sokka rubbed his temples, trying to process all of the information flying at him. _Fuck._ “Okay, so we had a collision with the asteroids, the task assignments are glitching, doors are still closing on their own, and we’ve got two injured crewmates. For future reference, if you guys could tell me when stuff goes wrong as it happens, that would be great. I’ve got to-” Suki whimpered, temporarily distracting Sokka. Katara glanced up from where she was dabbing at Suki’s busted eyebrow, silently assuring her brother _she’s fine_. He swallowed hard. “I've got to get get us back on track and contact the command center.” 


	3. boldly going forward (‘cause we can’t find reverse)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More things go haywire. Sokka creates a little team of people he trusts and they share theories, point fingers, and yell because they have a lot of feelings.

It had been two whole days since Suki took a tumble in the communications room. Two days of carefully monitored and completely regular brain activity, no more falling down, absolutely nothing to worsen her head injury from the crash with the asteroids. Forty-eight hours of being kept under watchful eyes, treated like a delicate flower, as if she were fragile enough to break if the wind blew too fiercely.

Suki was not fragile like a flower- she was fragile like a bomb. She thought her crewmates knew her better than that. Yet there she was, reduced to staring at security cameras for hours on end, Ty Lee posted at her side "in case something happens." Ty Lee knew she was unwanted - she would have hated someone looking over her shoulder at all times, too - but to Suki's credit, the green-clad crewmate did her best to make sure Ty Lee didn't feel like a nuisance.

"I'm glad you're doing better," Ty Lee broke the silence between them.

Suki tried to sound amicable. "Thanks. I guess I'm lucky Katara even cleared me to do this. I had to fight her on it, even though I don’t have a concussion or anything."

"You took a radio to the head," Ty Lee said plainly. "And you didn't even remember it. We figured it out when Sokka found your blood on the radio. So, yeah, we're all a little worried about you."

"But Katara's been watching me and I'm _fine_ ," Suki insisted for the umpteenth time. "What else do I have to prove that I'm good to go? I can say my ABCs backward, I know my name and my birthday, and I know how to do all of the jobs on this ship."

"She just cares about you. And she's probably acting under orders, anyway."

"What does that mean?" Suki spun the chair around only to discover that her crewmate wouldn't meet her eye. "Ty Lee," she prodded in an almost sing-song voice, watching the other girl squirm. "What do you know?"

Ty Lee bit her lip. "I mean, I don't know anything for sure," she hastily explained, stammering under Suki’s piercing gaze, "but. Okay, so, about a year ago I sprained my ankle dancing. I was fine, but Azula acted like I’d shattered my leg or something. She wouldn't let me do anything on my own, even after I got the boot off. And I saw how freaked out Sokka was when you came in all bloody and disoriented. I’m not saying it’s his fault you’re not cleared to do much of anything, but I could see him wanting to protect you. Especially since, again, he's the one who found the bloody radio in comms."

"At least I caught the damn thing," Suki crossed her arms tightly. "We'd have lost all contact with Earth if it'd hit the floor. And my face is healing up. Look," she pointed to the injury above her right eye. "It looks a lot better than when it was covered in blood."

"It's gonna leave a scar when the scab heals," Ty Lee said.

Suki slumped in the chair. "Scars and scabs don't make me incapable of starting the reactor!"

"Maybe you should tell that to Sokka?"

"He's avoiding me," Suki said bitterly. "We haven't spent any time together since I was discharged from the medbay." She'd be lying if she said it didn't hurt. Was she fooling herself? Was the injury, _which she'd gotten in an act of true heroism_ , really so repulsive that her own boyfriend couldn't stand to look at her?

"Well," Ty Lee walked over to Suki and spun the chair around to make her face the cameras. "He's gotta pass one of these cameras eventually. We'll figure out where he is and you can talk to him."

Suki huffed and fixated on the screens. She stared at them for so long that the screens actually appeared to grow brighter - wait, _no,_ the room itself grew darker, and the live feed on the screens slowly darkened as well. "Did we just lose lights?"

"I think so." Ty Lee's voice sounded unusually small in the dark.

"Well it's a good thing it's just the lights and not all of the ship's electricity." Suki fumbled in the desk drawer until she found what she was looking for. "I'm sure Katara doesn't want me roaming around in the dark." She clicked the flashlight on and swung the beam around until she found Ty Lee. “Take this.”

Ty Lee shielded her eyes from the harsh white light. "And do what with it?"

"Go flip the breaker in electrical." The poor girl looked absolutely dumbfounded. If Suki had gone as soon as the lights dimmed, the power on the ship would already be restored. Suki collected all of her patience. "It's the big box when you first walk in. There's gonna be a row of switches right in the middle with little green lights under them. If the light under a switch is off, flip it the other way. When all of the lights are green, we'll have the main lights back."

"I, um," Ty Lee sounded embarrassed. "I don't like being alone in the dark," she admitted in a blurt.

Suki tapped the security screen showing the entrance to the electrical room. "I'll be able to see you. It'll be like I'm right there." Ty Lee didn't budge. "The sooner you go, the sooner we can see again," Suki added promisingly. 

That got Ty Lee moving. Suki watched her disappear from the room clutching the flashlight, heard her footsteps grow more distant, and then finally saw her pink suit flash on the security screen as she went into the electrical room. Moments later, the lights hummed back on. Ty Lee hurried back to the security room, pleased to see that Suki hadn't moved from her spot at the cameras or passed out or anything like that. 

"I did it!"

Suki smiled genuinely at her crewmate's personal victory. "I'm proud of you." Her eyes dipped to Ty Lee's hands. "The flashlight's still on."

Ty Lee blushed. "Oops."

\----------

A low alarm sounded thrice, signifying the pattern needed to start the reactor was typed in incorrectly. That was the second time. Aang looked up from where he was unlocking the manifolds. “You good over there?”

Sokka jolted, startled, then frowned. “Aang, please, I really need to focus on this.”

Aang tilted his head, puzzled. “It kind of looks like you already weren’t focused.”

“I’m completely focused!” 

Aang watched Sokka press the wrong button again on the keypad. “You’ve been acting weird.”

“Weird? Me? You’re the one being weird.”

That settled it. “What’s going on?” Aang closed the panel covering the manifold buttons. “Come on, talk to me.”

“I’m really bad at this.”

“That’s okay.” Aang walked over to his friend. “The screen will show you the sequence, all you have to do is press the buttons in that order-”

“Not at starting the reactor.” Sokka kicked the metal box halfheartedly, frustration bubbling inside him. “At keeping the ship running smoothly. Every time I turn around something else goes wrong. At this rate we’ll be lucky if we make it back alive.”

“That’s crazy talk. Sure, we’ve had a few glitches, but stuff like that just happens sometimes. So the doors open and close on their own. Why does that matter?”

“It’s not about the damn doors!” 

Aang rested his hands on Sokka’s tense shoulders. “Breathe.” He guided his friend through several deep breaths, watching intently as his jaw untightened, waiting until he felt Sokka’s shoulders relax to continue. “Is this about what happened with the asteroids?”

Sokka wouldn’t meet his eyes. “She got hurt, Aang. She got hurt and it’s my fault. I can't even look at her without feeling like a failure.”

“Okay, now _that’s_ crazy talk. Sokka, it’s no one’s fault that we got off course. You’re the one that got the asteroids out of the way, so even if it was someone’s fault, it wouldn’t be yours. And besides, Jet got hurt too.”

“You don’t have to remind me.” Sokka ran a hand through his hair. “Look, it’s my fault because it’s my job to make sure the ship is operating properly. Somehow we got off course. If no one did it, then the ship didn’t operate properly.” He turned back to the reactor keypad.

With all of the self-deprecation laced with misery, Aang almost missed the carefully hidden and innocent-sounding but decisively pointed statement. “You said ‘if.’”

“Huh?” Sokka glanced up at Aang.

“You said ‘if,’” Aang repeated, resting his back against the reactor. “‘If no one did it.’”

“It’s theoretical. Y’know, like when you ask a girl ‘if we were the last two people on Earth.’” Sokka looked at the keypad. “Damn it. I missed when it showed me which one to press.” He guessed wrong. The flashing sequence started anew after the alarm sounded.

Joking should have been a good sign. It should have meant that Sokka was feeling like himself again and things were returning to normal. But Aang had known Sokka for too long. This wasn’t the same Sokka that walked onto the spaceship firing finger guns, greeting everyone with a wide grin and “What’s crackalackin’ crewmates?” 

He was undoubtedly hiding something.

Aang leaned over and lowered his voice, mindful of the chipper laugh coming from just across the hall in security. “So theoretically, if you thought someone did get us off course, you’d tell me, right?”

Sokka didn’t answer for what was probably the longest, most silent minute of Aang’s life. He finally finished the reactor sequence, and as if the look on his face wasn’t enough, his words sent Aang’s heart into his stomach. 

“Theoretically, I might need to talk to you later.”

\----------

Haru quite literally ran into Toph outside of the electrical room, sending the gas canister in her hand flying to the ground. _Fuck._ He barely knew this girl, and despite being a full foot and some-odd inches shorter than him she kind of terrified him, and it felt inappropriately ironic that he’d been the one to not see her.

“I’m so sorry!” He dove to pick it up. When his fingers secured around the handle of the jug, it was surprisingly light.

Toph reached out to take it back. “You’re lucky I was leaving the lower engine instead of heading there. Gas is a bitch to clean up.”

“No kidding.” Haru extended the jug to her. She took it wordlessly and resumed her path to the storage area. Haru did an awkward half-jog to catch up, desperate to stay in her good (or at least neutral) graces. “Did you do anything interesting today?”

Toph shrugged, a little defeated. “If you think refueling the engines is interesting, sure. But the real party starts when I get to O2 and clean the filter.”

Okay, okay, she was being sarcastic but not brash, so maybe she didn’t hate him. 

Haru watched Toph run her hand up the metal shelves and find the empty spot where the gas canister belonged. “I hate cleaning the filter. I can never get all of the junk out of there.”

“Dude, how?” Toph launched herself onto her tiptoes and slid the jug into its place on the shelf. “Even I can scrape it all out.”

Was it inappropriate to laugh? Or to not laugh? Before Haru could decide, he heard a laugh coming out of his mouth. The grin on Toph’s face confirmed that yes, it was a joke, he was supposed to laugh.

“Maybe I should come with you and learn from the master.”

The grin on Toph’s face was seamlessly replaced with a scowl. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Good. I’m terrible with kids.”

They walked down the hallway toward the shields. “Great,” Toph groaned, “Now you’ve got me thinking about how boring today has been. I might flip Katara’s socks inside out again later just to spice things up around here.”

“Doesn’t she know it’s you?”

“Yeah, but it’s not about being anonymous. It’s the satisfaction of doing it.” Toph stopped in her tracks and held out her arm to stop Haru. She cocked her head. “What’s that beeping sound?”

“What beeping sound?”

“Listen.”

A steady, quiet beeping sounded from the end of the hallway. “It’s coming from shields,” Haru realized. He jogged the short distance there and huffed when he saw the problem. “All of the shields are deactivated,” he explained to Toph, who leisurely met him in the bottom corner of the ship. “I’ll have to get my filter-cleaning masterclass another day.”

Toph blew her bangs out of her face. “Catch ya later.”

Haru entered his ID number into the defense system and reactivated the shields. Just as he raised the last one and the beeping stopped, a loud alarm sounded throughout the ship. Haru’s stomach twisted. _Not again._

The automated speaker system confirmed his worry. “Oxygen levels depleting in 30...29...28…”

From the direction of O2, he heard Toph yell “ _Are you fucking kidding me?_ ”

Her voice jolted Haru into action. He raced toward O2, hoping someone else had run to fix the malfunction from inside the admin room. Having a two-part recovery wasn’t too terribly irregular for spacecrafts like the one they were on, but putting one of the components in admin _had_ to be a design flaw. 

When he got there, Toph had opened the panel to the keypad but held her hands carefully away from it. She must have heard him coming, because she recited the override code to him as soon as he slid to a stop in front of the main oxygen tank. Haru didn’t have the heart to tell her that the code was scribbled onto a sticky note taped to the glass tank.

“20...19...Oxygen levels restored.”

So someone had entered the code from inside admin. Good.

Haru closed the keypad’s covering. “That’s the third time in a week.”

“No shit. At least we stopped it early this time.”

He felt awkward asking, but the truth would come out in the inevitably upcoming emergency meeting. “So. Uh. Do you know what happened?”

“I was literally fist-deep in the filter. Look, the junk is all over my hands. I wasn’t even near the tank.” Toph thrust out her ungloved hands which, as described, were covered in filter sludge.

“But, like. No one else came in here?”

Toph wiped her hands on the front of Haru’s spacesuit. “I sure didn’t hear anyone, and it’s hard to be stealthy on metal flooring.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” Haru looked down at the streaks of filth on his suit. 

“C’mon,” Toph grabbed him by the arm, “let’s try to grab dinner before this meeting starts.”

\----------

The crewmates were, unfortunately, quite familiar with the process of an emergency meeting at this point: who entered the override codes, does anyone know how XYZ malfunction happened, is anyone hurt? Today, Haru and Yue entered the override codes, no one knew how it happened, and no one was hurt. 

They got through the meeting in record time.

\----------

After the meeting, Sokka locked eyes with Aang, who nodded in response.

Aang not-so casually stood up from the cafeteria table. “Well, back to tasks I guess!” He walked toward the upper engine purposefully. It took all of Sokka’s willpower not to smack himself in the forehead. Aang was good, great even, at so many things, but subtlety was not one of them.

Sokka scooted down the bench. “Hey, Toph, can I talk to you about something?”

“If I can eat while you talk, sure.”

“So I’ve been thinking about Space Brain, and I think there are a few modifications I could make to it to make it even more amazing.”

“Like what?” Toph asked around a mouthful of bread.

“I was thinking,” Sokka glanced around the cafeteria, stalling as the other crewmates filed out. “Something a little less clunky. And the way it’s rigged is similar to the ship’s speaker system, which is similar to the radio in comms. If we have the right parts in storage, I may be able to turn it into a walkie-talkie type thing, and then if that works, I could see about making them for everyone else.” _Come on Azula, leave already._ “Or, at least, making a few of them we could pass around.”

“That actually sounds really cool.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Sokka nudged her teasingly.

Toph nailed his _surprisingly firm_ bicep in response. 

As soon as Azula stepped out of the cafeteria, Sokka jumped up. “We can talk about this later, because I’m serious about that, but right now I need you to come with me.”

Toph hiked her legs over the bench and grabbed her cafeteria tray. “Alright.”

That was one thing about Toph- she was a ride or die bitch. Sokka loved her for it. They walked toward the medbay where Katara and Aang were already waiting. Katara stood diligently by the door, just as Sokka had asked her to. “Is this everyone?” 

“Almost.” Sokka flopped onto one of the medical beds. “We’re waiting on one more. Circle up.”

“How do we make a circle with three people?” Aang asked from the end of bed across from Sokka’s.

Sokka threw a pillow at him, which Aang annoyingly caught. “We do our best.”

Toph planted herself on the floor between the two beds, effectively putting the three of them in a straight-ish line. “Well, it looks like a pretty good circle to me.”

Minutes later Zuko strolled up, the radio from comms in his arms. He stopped awkwardly in the doorway when he noticed the crowd in the medbay. “I didn’t realize this was a party.”

“It’s not.” Katara grabbed him by the shirt. “Get in here.” She closed the door to the medbay, ensuring no one would see the five of them.

“So if it’s not a party, what is this?” Toph asked.

“Emergency Meeting: The Sequel,” Sokka announced a little too proudly.

Zuko scrunched up his face. “Why do you have to give everything a dumb name?”

Sokka looked genuinely offended. “Grand Theft Radio is not a dumb name! It sounds like Grand Theft Auto!”

“Like something I could be charged with a felony or misdemeanor for,” Zuko deadpanned, shifting the radio in his arms while Katara hurried to clear off a spot on the table for it.

“Is anyone going to tell me what this meeting is about?” Toph interrupted their bickering.

“Right, sorry.” Sokka refocused. He waited until Zuko set the radio down and got comfortable - well, as comfortable as leaning against the corner of Katara’s desk could be - to continue. “I’ve been in pretty much constant contact with the command center. And at some point over the past week, each of you have either been directly involved in one of the mishaps or have come to me with information about them. I figured between the five of us we could hash out what’s been happening, piece it together, and relay it to the command center.” He noticed the concerned look on his sister’s face. “What?”

“You said this was top-secret and got half of the crew involved.”

“Not half,” Sokka pointed out. “There are twelve crewmates and five of us.”

“Semantics.” Katara crossed her arms and slouched in her rolling chair, not unlike the one in security. “I thought there’d be less of us.”

Sokka got up to set up the radio. “That would be ideal, but I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“We’re just going to have to trust each other,” Aang backed Sokka up. “I trust you guys.”

Toph set her empty tray on the floor. “So how does this work? We just say what weird thing we were subjected to?”

“Pretty much.” Sokka unwrapped the cords at the back of the radio. “Aang, you wanna go first?”

“Sure.” Aang swung his dangling legs off the end of the bed. “I had wires a few days ago. You know, routine check up, make sure everything is connected properly. A blown fuse or a wire slightly disconnected is normal. But in every box I checked, the wires were completely screwed up. Like, ‘blue boy wire connected to yellow girl wire’ screwed up.”

Zuko’s eyes widened. “That could be why the doors keep closing on their own. I feel like every time I turn around I get trapped in a different room.”

“Yeah, that only seems to happen to you,” Katara muttered.

It was no secret that they'd had their fair share of disagreements. They differed on just about everything, actually. There was a constant, unspoken war waged between the two over matters both trivial and serious: the better breakfast to eat, the better student, the most miserable life. One would always be the short, unlit fuse, and the other served as the spark.

Zuko turned on her. “What, do you think I’m locking myself into every room on the ship?” 

“I’m just saying it’s really convenient that almost every room with a wire box also has a door, and Aang just said that the wires were all messed up. Being locked in by yourself is the perfect alibi to mess with them.”

“Katara-” Aang interjected, but Zuko cut him off.

“No, I want to hear this. What motive could I possibly have for doing something as stupid as that and then publicizing it to everyone? What do you think I'm doing in these locked rooms? And why would I mess up the wires _after_ being locked in?” Katara didn’t answer. Zuko rolled his eyes. “You have no motive, therefore you have no case.”

Katara reached the end of her fuse. “‘Felony or misdemeanor,’ ‘motive,’ ‘no case.’ We get it, Daddy’s money paid for law school. Oh wait, you dropped out after a year!”

“And went into the space program instead, just like you,” Zuko shot back. “How was your semester and a half of med school, Katara? Those student loans treating you well?”

“Hey,” Sokka snapped, shutting both of them up. “We’re doing business right now, not pointing fingers. Honestly, I didn’t expect this from you two.”

Toph raised her voice from the floor. “If you’re done, I’ll go next.” When Katara nor Zuko said anything, both silently fuming, Toph went on. “For two out of the three O2 malfunctions, I was in O2 when they started. No one else was in there at the time so I have no idea how they could have happened.”

“What was that, the second and third malfunctions?” Sokka asked.

“Actually, the first and third,” Toph corrected.

The gears turned in Sokka’s head, because _that didn't make sense_. “Aang, I thought you said when you fixed the first malfunction no one else was in there.”

Aang quickly tried to explain. “I thought it was an accident, I was trying to cover for her!”

Toph drove her fist into Aang’s legs, causing him to yelp. “I told you I didn’t do it!”

“I thought you were just embarrassed!”

Zuko narrowed his eyes. “So we’re in here talking about trusting each other, but Toph was the only one there when the O2 malfunctions happened, Aang lied to the whole crew about it, and for some reason Katara thinks I like messing with the wires. This is a great team you’ve put together, Sokka.”

Sokka gritted his teeth. “Thanks.” 

Katara sighed, leaning back in her chair. “I guess that leaves me. And get ready, because this sounds crazy: I think someone got in here during the asteroid incident and destroyed the health screenings on purpose.” She cut her eyes at Zuko. “No, I don’t know the motive. But I do have proof.”

Zuko arched an eyebrow, equally amused and curious. “Do tell.”

“Just before the collision, the cafeteria doors shut. I couldn’t see the medbay anymore. Anyone could have gotten in. Well, anyone except Yue. She was trapped with me.”

“And I don’t think the collision happening at the same time the screenings were destroyed was a coincidence,” Sokka added before Zuko could retaliate.

Aang put the pieces together. “‘If no one did it,’” he quoted Sokka from their earlier conversation.

“‘If,’” Sokka repeated.

 _Oma and Shu._ Toph had wanted to spice up her day, but she never would have bet on anything like this happening. “‘If’ someone did it,” she butted in, having no clue what those two morons were talking about, “they would have had a hell of a time making it all the way from navigation to the medbay without cutting through the cafeteria.”

Then Sokka dropped the thought-bomb that had plagued him for _days_. “Not if it was a two-man job.”

The weight of the theory hit the group. There was a distinct possibility that two of their crewmates, whom they'd trained and studied and laughed and cried with for months or possibly years before being selected for this mission, were actively trying to kill the others on board. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

“So we’re just assuming - again, without reason - that not one, but two people on this ship are meddling around.” Zuko looked between the other four crewmates. “That sounds crazy.”

“Did I not say that?” Katara asked.

“Do you have a better explanation?” Aang asked, wanting to extinguish the spark before one of them detonated again.

Zuko crossed his arms. “It’s not my job to have a better explanation. There’s this thing called reasonable doubt.”

“‘Your job?’” Katara echoed incredulously.

Zuko looked to Sokka for validation. “That is what we discussed, right?”

“Yeah,” Sokka admitted to Katara’s disbelief, “I wanted a devil’s advocate. I really don’t want to accuse anyone of anything, especially without solid proof. But with so many things going wrong, it’s hard not to wonder.”

“So what do we do now?” Toph asked.

Sokka turned the dial on the radio until it turned green. “Now it’s showtime. Gather around, everyone.” The other four joined the huddle around the radio. He picked up the microphone. “Blue to White Lotus.”

Moments later, Piandao’s unmistakable voice replied. “White Lotus to Blue. I have to be honest, we hoped it would be longer until we heard from you again.”

“Yeah, me too. Just so you know, I have orange, cyan, red, and lime with me. We had-”

“Red? Hello, Zuko!”

Zuko cringed, but his insides warmed up It had been _so long_ since he heard that voice. “Hi, Uncle.”

Sokka's stream of thought was barely hindered by the interruption. “We had a third oxygen malfunction today. And we lost lights for a little while.”

Pakku’s voice crackled through the radio. “You lost oxygen again? That’s absurd.”

Katara yanked the microphone away from her brother. “What’s absurd is the fact that we’ve nearly died from an O2 depletion three times this week! I’m starting to think this ship isn’t as safe as we were led to believe!”

“You know,” Toph said dryly, “for a ship that’s supposed to be top-of-the-line quality, it sure malfunctions a lot.”

“The ship isn’t the problem,” came Piandao’s voice again. “We’re monitoring the vessel from Earth as well as we can, and all systems are performing at peak level. There’s no good explanation as to why these malfunctions keep happening.”

Sokka leaned in close to Katara to reach the microphone, which was still in her enraged grip. “Well, is there a bad explanation?” 

“The only expl-” Iroh’s solemn voice was garbled by static. 

Zuko wrenched the microphone from Katara's hands. “Uncle, we’re losing you. What is it?”

Fragments of Iroh’s voice came through clearly. “...someone aboard...sabotaging...be safe…” The radio went out completely.

“Did we hear that right?” Aang looked between his fellow crewmates nervously. “Did he say someone on board is sabotaging the ship?”

Sokka fiddled with the knob on the radio, waiting on the green light signifying a stable connection to come back on. It never did. “Well, I guess we were right.”

“Now what?” Toph asked. “We just go back to our lives and pretend everything is fine until we figure this out?”

“We need to lay low,” Sokka said. “Someone on this ship is sabotaging us, and they’ve almost killed us several times. We know now, but they can’t know that we know, or we put ourselves and everyone else in even more danger. Absolutely nothing can leave this room. Siblings, significant others, childhood friends, roommates, I don’t care.”

“That’s a loaded disclaimer.”

Katara sighed again, even more exasperated. “Not everything is about you, Zuko.”

“Not everything,” he conceded, “but that was. I’m the only one with a sibling, significant other, childhood friend, and roommate not in here.”

“Significant other?” Aang gave the older boy an interested look.

“Something like that,” Zuko clarified, suddenly shy. "Forget about it."

“You know what I meant.” Sokka rubbed his temples. “Just. Everyone keep your mouth shut. Don’t even talk to each other about it unless we’re all in here.”

A hesitant knock came from outside the medbay door. “Katara, are you in there?”

The whole group went silent and looked at Katara. Aang pointed at the door and mouthed “Suki?” Katara winced and nodded. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“You asked me to check in after dinner, remember?”

Sokka looked to his sister in alarm. “You did what?” He whispered.

“It was before I knew about the meeting, I forgot,” Katara explained in a panicked whisper. She bustled around the desk area, returning her things to their rightful places. She raised her voice. “Oh, yeah!” She pulled up the latest health screening tab on her computer. “Uh, right now isn’t a good time,” Aang handed her a stack of papers, which she set on top of an even bigger stack on the desk, “can you come back later? Maybe tomorrow morning?” 

She shoved the radio into Zuko’s stomach, causing him to audibly groan out “Fuck, Katara.”

All five crewmates shared the same horrified expression. _Maybe she didn’t hear._

“Kat,” Suki called coyly, “you alone in there?”

Katara glared daggers at Zuko, who couldn’t even hide his flaming cheeks because he now held the radio. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Sure, sure. I’ll go away. Have fun, be safe! Proud of you!”

Though they heard Suki’s footsteps retreat, Toph suppressed a laugh through her nose.

“Did she think-” Aang started, still in a whisper.

“She thought you guys were going at it!” Toph cried out, letting out a laugh.

“Toph!” Sokka tried to shush her, but she waved him off.

“What? She’s gone now.”

Katara stuck her pointer finger into Zuko’s chest, ever closer to reaching new heights of rage. “This is all your fault.”

“You threw a radio at me!”

“Never in my life have I been more embarrassed.”

“How do you think I feel? What if Mai finds out?”

“No, stop,” Toph complained, “you’re making it less funny.”

“We can fix this,” Sokka reasoned, ignoring the five-foot gremlin antagonizing the situation. “We can just tell Suki what really happened and swear her to secrecy.”

“What was that rule again?” Toph pretended to think. “Something about ‘no significant others?’”

Aang put a comforting hand on Katara's back. “Just say it was something medical. That way you don’t have to give her any details.”

Katara lowered her glare at Zuko and stepped away from him, calmed by Aang's gesture. “Good thinking.”

“Okay.” Sokka clapped his hands together. “No one says a word about anything that happened tonight, real or fake. Pay attention to what everyone says and does. We’ve got to figure out who’s jacking with the ship, and why, and we’ve got to do it fast."


	4. in a sky full of stars i think i see you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~the first death~ 
> 
> As promised, nothing graphic. Just a whoooole lotta blood.

In the quiet, masked by the hum of the ship, another secret meeting took place.

“They don’t suspect a thing.”

“How could they not?”

“They haven’t noticed that we often pretend to do the tasks. They haven’t noticed that we broke into their system and wired it into the screens on our sleeves. We control this whole ship at the press of a button.”

“They know _something_ is going on. We need to lay low for a bit.”

“No. We have a job to do.”

A heavy sigh. “Who first?”

Footsteps passed the room they hid in. A gentle voice hummed a soft song.

“Perfect.”

“No. Not them.”

“No one is near. No one would ever know it was us.”

“Not. Them.”

“If it comes down to it, we’ll have to.”

“It won’t. Find someone else.”

“I have one in mind. Do you remember the plan?”

“When we leave lunch, I go right, wait five minutes, and turn off the lights. You’ll be in and out. We meet up and wait for someone to find the body.”

“Good. I’ll see you then.”

—————

Yue did a double-take after finishing the wires in admin. “Oh, you scared me! I didn’t see you come in.”

Ty Lee shrugged. “I’m pretty hard to miss. Just gotta swipe in real quick, then I’m off to the cafeteria.”

“I’ve got wires in there, too. Want me to wait on you?”

“Sure!” Ty Lee swiped her card perfectly on the first try. “Let’s go!”

—————-

Mai opened the O2 filter and shuddered. “This is disgusting.”

“I didn’t think you were such a girly-girl.”

“I’m not. But this is disgusting. We’re about to eat.”

Toph grinned. “Wanna make a trade? I’m sick of getting stuck with trash and I don’t care about getting my hands dirty.”

“We’re not supposed to trade tasks.”

Toph took her gloves off and rolled her sleeves up. “No one will ever know as long as both jobs get done.”

It didn’t take Mai long to weigh her options. “Deal.”

—————

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Sokka froze when he heard his girlfriend’s voice. “Oh, hey. I’m just waiting on this download; it’s almost done.”

Suki stepped closer, just in front of the ship’s steering system. “Don’t change the subject. I save you a seat at dinner every night, but you’ll sit by anyone except me. You won’t look at me, not even now. I’m still the same person I was before the accident.”

“I know, I just-” Sokka finally, _finally_ faced Suki. “I blamed myself for it. It felt like I was the one that hurt you.”

 _Oh._ Immense relief washed over Suki. She lightly hit his shoulder. “That’s pretty stupid.”

Sokka rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I figured that out. I’ve missed you.”

Suki wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. When his arms slid around her back, it felt like home. “I’ve missed you too. I’m still kind of mad at you, though.”

“How can I make it up to you?”

Suki glanced over Sokka’s shoulder at the download screen. She lowered her voice. “Well, you’ve got eighteen minutes to change my mind.”

She felt Sokka swallow. “Here?”

“Right here, Captain. Everyone else already headed to lunch. I better be able to feel a bruise from that steering wheel digging into my back for a week.”

 _Captain. Fuck._ How could he say no to that?

—————

Katara flinched when the analysis machine _dinged_ in the silence of the medbay. Oddly, no one had dropped in for any impromptu visits or with minor injuries so far. She’d been so engrossed in her research - and her lunch, which she’d brought to the medbay - that she nearly forgot about the health tests that were being processed. 

She turned her chair around to face the machine and- oh. _That’s weird._

The test she had to run involved a complex conglomeration of chemicals mixing with blood samples from the crewmates. If everything was regular with the sample, it would turn a shade of dark blue. 

There were five vials in front of her. Four of them were blue. One was bright red.

 _Huh._ Maybe she’d mixed the chemicals incorrectly or accidentally tainted the sample; the last few days had been exhausting, and human error was probable. She rolled her chair over to the samples for a closer look. 

The labels on the vials were peeled off. She had no way of knowing whose sample was showing the anomaly, much less how to deduce if it had been an error on her part or if something were really wrong.

That was only part of the problem, however. The bigger part was that she’d meticulously labeled the samples mere days ago. 

Katara tried to push what they’d learned at the “secret meeting” out of her head. It was impossible for anyone to sneak into the medbay, especially with how often she was in there and how carefully she watched the door when she stepped into the cafeteria.

Unless she’d let the saboteur in. 

There was no way. The only people who had been in the medbay recently were the other attendants of the secret meeting. None of them would do that, not to her.

Well. One of them _might._ Especially if he had pushed the idea that no one was tampering with the ship to throw suspicion off of himself.

—————

Azula had barely stepped into the reactor when the lights went out. “Son of a bitch,” she muttered to herself. She was probably the closest to electrical, meaning she’d need to be the one to flip the breaker. 

And of _course_ she’d never gotten her flashlight back from Ty Lee. After the last time the lights unexpectedly went out, her girlfriend had been so jumpy she could hardly sleep. Naturally, she’d brought her flashlight to Ty Lee’s cabin. Azula had been _nice_ for once, and this is where it got her- in the pitch black, all alone, surrounded only by the glowing lights of the reactor.

She stepped into the hallway and made her way toward electrical. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, but that didn’t make it any easier to see, especially in the hallways. 

She stubbed her toe on the corner of the lower engine’s doorframe and hissed in pain. _Okay, check and adjust._ Once the pain subsided, she straightened herself and kept walking. Electrical wasn’t far from there.

Azula lost her balance and was sent sprawling on the floor as soon as she stepped into electrical- she’d tripped over something large in the doorway. _How humiliating._ She sat upright and- _ew._ She’d fallen in something sticky. Seriously, the ship required a deep cleaning. Someone needed to do that. 

What even was on the floor? Did someone carelessly leave a bag or something lying around? She reached out and patted around. _Ah._ It wasn’t a what, it was a who.

She didn’t bother hiding her malice. “Couldn’t you find a better place to take a nap?”

Whoever it was didn’t answer. Another set of footsteps approached electrical.

Azula waved a sticky hand in the darkness. “Watch your step. Some imbecile decided the doorway was a good spot to lie down for a while.”

“Who’s talking?”

Azula rolled her eyes. _Jet._ “Did the loss of lights impair your hearing, too? It’s Azula.”

She could barely make out the outline of Jet’s body in the darkness- he didn’t have a flashlight, either. He took a giant step to avoid tripping like Azula had and went to the breaker. 

“You gonna make me do all the work?” 

“I fell into something gross. I hardly think spreading it to the switches would be helpful right now.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever, miss priss.”

Jet flipped the lights on. Neither of them were prepared for the scene before them.

—————

The storage doors slammed shut in Aang’s face. He pushed on it defiantly. 

“We have to wait it out.”

He knew Zuko was right, but it didn’t matter. “If we both push we can force it open. Are you just gonna stand there?”

“It’s impossible. I’ve tried every time it’s happened.”

“Zuko, they’re _screaming._ Something’s wrong!”

Through the metal barrier, they could indeed hear two people screaming- both in horror, a male voice repeating “ _What did you do?_ ” 

Zuko’s entire body went on edge. “I think Azula’s in there.”

“How many times have you heard your sister scream like that?”

Aang had a point. Zuko pressed his palms to the door and helped Aang try to pry it open. It didn’t budge until the five minutes was up and the ship’s safety feature slid the doors open. 

They barreled down the hallway, Aang slightly behind Zuko, and skidded to a stop in front of electrical. Jet and Azula both knelt on the floor, Jet still screaming at her, Azula frozen in shock but with tears streaming down her face. 

Azula was _covered_ in blood.

“What hap- oh no.” Aang felt sick to his stomach when he noticed the third crewmate in the room.

_Haru._

Zuko pushed past Aang. “Go find Sokka. _Now._ ” He stepped closer to the three in the room as Aang sped off, yelling for their friend. 

“Jet. JET.” The other man finally stopped his frenzied scream and looked up at Zuko. “Step out and take a breather. Don’t let anyone get near the door. No one else needs to see this.”

Jet pushed himself to his feet and, now numb all over, exited the room. Zuko extended a hand to Azula. She took it and, surprisingly, buried her face in his shoulder, the tears still pouring. 

They did yelling, and shoving, and glaring, and as they got older they shifted to snarky comments, occasional awkward hugs, and generally leaving each other alone. This was new territory. 

Safe in her brother’s arms, Azula mumbled something over and over. It took Zuko a moment to make out what the words were.

“ _I didn’t do it._ ”

Azula always lied. But Azula never cried, and she certainly never hugged. This time, she was telling the truth.

Zuko gently rubbed her back, ignoring the transfer of blood from her suit to his. “I believe you.”


	5. it’s lonely out in space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aftermath of first death + the Toph and Yue interaction we were robbed of in canon + secret tunnel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve LOVED getting to read all of your comments. It honestly makes me want to keep writing! Thank you for all of the reactions and ideas (and kudos!) and please keep leaving them!

“Can you tell me what happened one more time?”

Azula glared up at Sokka through the curtain of her hair. “I went to flip the breaker. I tripped over-” 

She couldn’t get the picture out of her mind.

“I tripped over him. Jet came in and turned on the lights. My brother and Aang came next. You know the rest.”

That was the problem. Sokka didn’t know the rest. He didn’t know how one of the crewmates was murdered in cold blood without anyone seeing or hearing anything. He didn’t know why anyone would do that. He didn’t know who was responsible.

He didn’t know who was next.

Sokka skimmed over Azula’s written testimony, his pencil tapping incessantly against the clipboard in his hands. “You were in the reactor when the lights cut out?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t see anyone on your way to flip the breaker?”

_“Yes.”_

“Okay, okay.”

Azula pulled her blanket tighter around her body. “Why are you asking me again? It was immediately reported- hell, it’s probably national news by now. We had the world’s first funeral in space yesterday.”

“I’m just trying to fill in the blanks.”

“Yeah? Well the next time I find one of our crewmates dead, I’ll take better notes.”

The pencil stopped tapping. “I’m sorry this happened to you. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.” When Azula said nothing, Sokka rushed to fill the silence. “Not that you’re not my worst enemy or anything. I know a bunch of stuff went down with our scores for who got to lead this mission-”

“If we’re done, I’d like to lie down for a while.”

Why couldn’t she have a conversation like a normal person? Or at least let him try to make amends for things out of their control? Sokka slowly pushed himself up from the bed across from Azula’s. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” 

—————

Yue played with the end of her braid, ignoring the half-empty bowl of soup in front of her. “Do you ever get homesick?”

Toph barely thought before answering. “Nope.”

“You don’t miss your family?”

“We don’t get along well. My parents don’t understand me, and they don’t really try to, either.” 

“My dad and I are really close. I miss him a lot.”

Then, _then,_ Toph thought a little deeper. She swirled her spoon around in her own soup. “I do miss my mom,” she admitted. “She at least pretended to love me when I stopped playing by all of their rules. I mean, I’m pretty sure she loves me, but she probably doesn’t like me. I don’t think my dad does.”

“I’m sure he loves you.”

Toph scoffed. “You don’t know him.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” Yue put a hand on Toph’s shoulder. “But I can’t imagine anyone hating you. I admire you a lot.”

“Why?”

“It was hard enough to convince my dad to let me apply for the space program, and telling him I was actually going into space was so much harder. But you?” 

Yue was momentarily at a loss for words. None of the words that came to mind really captured her awe at the younger girl. 

“You just did it. And you didn’t let anything stand in your path, or let anyone give you any trouble. From the day we met I knew you’d be picked to come up here. I wish I was more like you, taking life by the horns and living to the fullest.”

It was like Yue had an epiphany with every word that came out of her mouth.

“I’ve always done what I was supposed to do, and what was expected of me, and probably taken all of that a step further than I had to. And I never minded doing it because it was the right thing to do. But I don’t think doing things for myself is the wrong thing to do anymore, it’s just a different right thing. Maybe even a more right thing.” 

She forced a laugh. “I was engaged to a guy I didn’t love because I knew we’d have a good life together. And my dad liked him, so I just went along with it for so much longer than he deserved to be strung along for. And when I broke it off, I was so upset because of everything I was losing and I thought it was a selfish decision, but I was also so relieved. I never really knew why I was relieved, because it hurt and I threw away a chance at a perfectly happy life, but I get it now. My only regret is not doing it sooner.”

”You almost married a guy just because your dad wanted you to?” Toph didn’t try to hide her bewilderment or disgust. “Couldn’t be me. Then again, my parents pretended like I didn’t exist to the outside world until I was, like, twelve. Parents are weird.”

”Yeah, they are. They do what they think is best, and they do it because they love us, but it really hurts us sometimes. How are we supposed to tell them we can be our own people without sounding like we don’t want their love? Or without sounding selfish?”

Toph made a small, content sound. “Doing things for yourself isn’t ‘selfish’ in a bad way. It’s important. You’ve got to take care of you, because there’s no guarantee that anyone else will. I learned that when I was very young. Welcome to the club.” She raised her soup bowl, some of its contents sloshing out. “To self-love, self-care, and selfishness.”

Yue tapped her bowl against Toph’s gently, trying to avoid making a bigger, soupier mess. “May we always have our own backs.”

—————

Quiet moments alone on the ship were rare. Normally, Mai appreciated every second of solitude. Even if she did have to stare at the security cameras the whole time.

Things were different now. Solitude might mean death. 

She felt stupid for being on edge. She didn’t think she’d pissed anyone off enough for them to want to kill her, but then again, she couldn’t imagine Haru had either. 

She sat at the edge of the rolling chair, fixated on the screens. This job was more important now than ever before.

However, that didn’t make it any more interesting. 

—————

Jet sat on a bed in the medbay, his sleeve once again rolled up to his elbow. Katara tenderly unwrapped the gauze from his forearm. “Has the burn been bothering you much?”

Jet lightly shrugged. “It itches and stings sometimes, but it’s healing up. Whatever you’ve been putting on it is working wonders.”

The injury was smaller than it had been days prior and had faded to an irritated pink rather than an angry red. Katara unscrewed the lid of the jar containing the salve. “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse, and that I got to it so quickly. There could have been serious damage.”

“Nothing your magic healing hands couldn’t fix.” Jet’s lopsided smile twisted into a pained look when Katara ran her ointment-coated fingers over the injury. 

Katara stayed focused on the treatment. “I don’t know about that. There could have been nerve damage, or you could have needed a skin graft, or any number of things. Heat can be dangerous.”

“Is that why you keep it freezing in here?”

“No,” Katara allowed herself a small smile, “I just like the cold. Always have. It reminds me of home.” She noticed his expression. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Jet said through gritted teeth, “just keep talking. Anything.”

“Okay, um. Oh! Toph snores, like, really loudly. She sounds like a pug. If I don’t fall asleep before her, it’s a nightmare trying to sleep over that.”

“I’d give anything to chunk a pillow at him again just to get him to shut up,” Jet said absently.

 _Shit._ Katara hadn’t even considered the insensitivity of bringing up roommates when Jet’s had unexpectedly passed days before, if one could even call it that- there was no doubt that someone on board was responsible for Haru’s death.

She unwrapped clean gauze from the roll. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t- I didn’t think.”

Jet seemed unfazed, or maybe still numb to what had happened. “Suki’s rooming with you guys too, right? Because she lost the coin toss with Zuko for the single room?”

Katara rolled her eyes, a half-annoyed smile forming as she spoke. “Her bed is, but half the time it’s empty. I guess that means Aang’s been taking the extra bed in Zuko’s room.”

“I’m sure he’s thrilled about that.”

“Which ‘he?’”

Jet chuckled. “Either, I guess.” He watched her finish wrapping his arm and secure the loose end of the gauze in place. He caught one of her hands in his. “Your magic hands have done it again.”

A low blush spread across Katara’s face. “It’s not magic, it’s medicine.”

“It’s a miracle. You’re a miracle.” He pressed a soft kiss to the back of her hand, never breaking eye contact. “Are you gonna tell me you don’t believe in magic?”

She wasn’t sure how it happened or who leaned in first, but when their lips touched, Katara decided she did indeed believe in magic.

—————

The silence in the storage area was nearly tangible. As far as Aang was concerned, he could stay on his side refilling the gas can, and Suki could stay on her side fixing the wires, and _neither of them had to talk about what happened._

“So about the other day.” Suki apparently was not on the same wavelength as him. “I’m sorry you walked in on, uh, that.”

Aang stared straight ahead at the gas tank. “It’s fine. Normal, healthy people doing normal, healthy things.”

“It didn’t seem fair to lock you out of your own cabin, but we thought you’d still be doing tasks anyway.”

An honest explanation. A stupid explanation, but an honest one.

The gas streamed slowly into its transport can. Aang tried not to count each second it took. “To be fair, you were right. But then we had that emergency and I figured I’d check the cabin for Sokka first.”

 _That emergency._ “Yeah,” Suki agreed, a little embarrassed, “really unfortunate timing there.” She was more upset that they’d been walked in on while _that emergency_ was happening than the fact that they’d been caught at all.

“No one could have known that was gonna happen though,” Aang went on. “I should have knocked first.”

“No! No, that was on us,” Suki assured him. “Please don’t feel like any of that was your fault.” The ordeal had been mortifying enough. She was just glad he hadn’t found them in navigation during lunch.

An awkward lull grew in the room; neither of them really knew what else to say.

“Um.” Aang cleared his throat after a moment, already flushing furiously, but natural curiosity clawed through. “How did you get your legs- nevermind.” His own embarrassment won out over the genuine intrigue.

“Years of dance and gymnastics.”

“Ah.”

Yet another uncomfortable pause in the conversation developed. 

Suki coughed. “Did you happen to see a bruise-?”

A bruise on her back that suspiciously looked like the ship’s steering wheel? “Yupp.” Aang closed the gas carton.

Suki shut the wire box. “Cool.”

When they parted ways, they knew they’d never talk about it again.

—————

Zuko had been standing in electrical for exactly 53 minutes, according to the download screen in front of him. Ty Lee came in at around the 16 minute mark to divert power elsewhere on the ship and got distracted when she saw him. She’d been talking for _37 minutes straight_ with no end in sight.

“-so I try to get at least eight hours of sleep even though I’m perfectly capable of running on four, because I can feel a physical, emotional, and spiritual difference between when I’m well-rested and when I’m not-”

He didn’t know how Azula did it.

“-I take pride in my aura being as bright as it is, because I had to work really hard to get to this point in my life, and I don’t want to do anything to undo that progress or set myself back-”

She was nice, excessively so, and could seemingly talk to anyone. Maybe that was it? She was sweet and charming and attractive.

What the hell was an aura, anyway?

“-got really bad during school for a while there, because I’m not good at studying for things even if I know the content, y’know, but Azula really helped me a lot with school and my health overall improved so much-”

Zuko looked down at his feet, pretending to take an interest in the flooring. How could Ty Lee think about _anything_ other than their now-deceased crewmate while standing in the room where it had happened? 

Of course, she had it easier than him. She hadn’t seen the body.

“-worried about Azula though, she’s been really out of it since the other day, and I’ve never seen her act the way she is now, all quiet all the time-”

A particular aspect of the flooring became _very_ interesting to Zuko. He had no idea how they’d missed it before. 

A streak of blood on the edge of the vent. 

“-reminds me of Mai, but scary in a different way, because Mai’s like Halloween scary all the time, but Azula’s scaring me because I don’t know how to help her-”

With the body being in front of the breaker, they hadn’t even thought to look at the other half of the room, much less the vent tucked into the back corner of the floor. 

How did blood get all the way over there?

Zuko crouched down to investigate.

“-Mai seems happier now that you guys are kind of a thing, and you do too, which is super great by the way, even if it’s not official or exclusive or anything like that. What are you looking at?”

All he wanted to do was slide the vent slots open, but with the slightest push the entire vent swung open, eliciting a tiny gasp from Ty Lee. It took Zuko’s brain a second to realize she wasn’t still talking. Bits of her excessive monologue echoed through his brain before fading to silence. 

He looked up at her. “Do you know where this connects to?”

Ty Lee shrugged. “Nope. I’m sure it’s on a schematic somewhere. But security’s not far from here. Neither is the medbay, or the engines, or the reactor. The cafeteria’s kind of close, but the vent is on the far side, and there’s not one in storage. It gets so hot in there. I wonder if we have a fan or something we could put in storage, or at least some extra water-”

Zuko cut her off before she could get onto another tangent. “Wanna help me solve the mystery?”

—————

Mai barely looked up from the computer screen. “You sure ran out of electrical fast. Did Zuko scare you off?”

Ty Lee leaned against the doorframe, only slightly panting. “You’ve been watching the cameras the whole time, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see anything weird?”

 _This,_ Mai wanted to say, but she played along. “No, not really. Why do you ask?”

In the reflection of the computer screen, she saw a figure that was decidedly _not_ Ty Lee standing very close behind her. She nearly jumped out of her skin when two hands landed on her shoulders. Mai whirled around in the chair, ready to kill a man, when she saw who it was.

“Zuko! You scared the shit out of me! How did you-” she looked from the screen to him and back again. “How did you get here?” She asked slowly. “And why are you all gross and dusty?”

He didn’t answer her directly. “You didn’t see me at all?”

Mai peeled his hands off of her, still appalled by the dust bunnies attached to his suit. “Not until you were right up on me. I thought you were still in electrical.”

Zuko stood still while Mai picked a clump of dust out of his hair. “I think I know how whoever killed Haru got out of electrical without Azula seeing them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, if you wanted to leave your guesses as to who the impostors are, I would love to hear them & why you think that.


	6. fly me to the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the second death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another little shorty chapter for ya. since i’m on break now, i should be able to do some more long chapters!

“One down.”

“Too many to go.”

“We need to make our next move.”

“We just made our first move a few days ago.”

“They’re getting comfortable again. And they discovered our little secret.”

“We need to unscrew the vents again when everyone is distracted.”

“Hit the lights in about an hour. We’ll fix our escape paths then.”

—————

For as much as Ty Lee liked to talk, she knew when her girlfriend needed quiet. They played their seventh silent game of tic-tac-toe in Azula’s cabin, basking in the little alone time they got together.

“Do you like rooming with Mai?”

Ty Lee looked up at Azula, who was still so focused on where she’d place her next X that Ty Lee wasn’t certain she’d spoken at all. “Yeah. She’s clean, she listens to me, and she doesn’t get upset when I fall asleep with the flashlight on.”

The flashlight Azula had given her. Azula pursed her lips. “Don’t I do those things too?”

“Of course! Those things, and so much more.”

“Are you having fun right now?” Azula scratched an X onto the game board they’d scribbled onto a napkin.

“Yeah. I like getting to spend time with you.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do this all the time?”

Ty Lee marked an O on the board, blocking Azula from getting three of her X’s in a row. “I guess, yeah.”

“Why don’t you come stay in here with me?”

Ty Lee dropped her pen. “It would be kind of crowded with us and Yue and only the two beds.”

Azula rolled her eyes. “Ask Yue to trade rooms with you.”

“Oh!” That made much more sense. 

“Think about it. We were supposed to move into the apartment a month ago anyway. It would hardly be different.”

Ty Lee honestly didn’t know how they hadn’t thought of this sooner. She leaned over the edge of the bed to fish around for her pen.

“Besides, with a room to ourselves, we could find more interesting ways to pass the time without worrying about roommates barging in.”

 _Oh._ Ty Lee swung herself upright, pen forgotten. “You know, I think Yue’s on asteroids right now. That task takes a while.”

“And would you look at that.” Azula glanced to the door. “The door seems to be locked.”

The lights in the cabin went out. Both girls froze.

Azula whispered in the darkness. “I’m not going to fix it.”

“Me either,” Ty Lee breathed. 

“With the door locked, I suppose we’re safe in here.”

Yeah. Ty Lee was _definitely_ asking Yue if they could switch rooms.

—————

“We’ve got our alibi, and the vents are open.”

“Everything is going according to plan.”

“What is the plan exactly?”

“We’ll wait a few more hours and do exactly what we did last time. Sabotage and strike.”

“Which sabotage are we thinking? The reactor would be easy to overwhelm.”

“It’d be too noticeable if we didn’t go in there to fix it. I say we do oxygen again. The group has to split up to fix it. We wait until someone is isolated from the group and take them down.”

—————

Katara’s computer beeped incessantly. She ran over to see what the problem was, annoyed that she was yet again being torn away from her research.

She made a pleased noise in the silence of the medbay. The computer had _finally_ managed to retrieve some of the backed-up data from the samples she’d lost during the asteroid crash. Regrettably, the data wasn’t labeled. _Figures._

 _Oh no._ That wasn’t good. That proved that the anomaly in the recent samples wasn’t human error.

Behind her, the vent creaked open.

Katara grabbed the nearest thing she could weaponize - _a roll of paper towels, really?_ \- and poised to strike at whoever emerged.

The roll of paper towels made contact with Zuko’s dusty head. He yelped. “What was that for?”

Katara backed away, paper towels still pointed at him. “Don’t play dumb. Just- stay right there where I can see you.”

“I’m not going to kill you. I’m scouting out which vents lead to where.”

“Why should I believe you?” Katara took another step back, ready to bolt out of the medbay.

“Because we can’t find the ship’s schematics and your brother told me to crawl around and figure it out.” Zuko hoisted himself out of the vent and waved his empty hands. “See? No weapons. Just dust.”

“Great, you found the medbay. Now get back in there and go back to wherever you came from.”

Zuko ignored her. “What’s wrong with your computer?”

Katara raced to the desk and threw herself in front of the screen. “Don’t look at that! It’s classified information!”

“It’s not like I know what all of your medical mumbo-jumbo means anyway.” Zuko peered over her shoulder at the screen. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good.”

Katara swallowed. “It’s not.” Her voice dipped in pitch, shaky from the information she’d just found out and definitely not from the fact that they were practically pressed together on top of her desk. “It’s really bad.”

He matched her low volume, eyes full of concern. “What is it?”

She had nothing to lose by telling him. She may have hated him, but she knew he could keep a secret. And if this information got out, she’d know exactly who to blame.

“It’s the blood samples.” Katara wiggled out from underneath him and, deciding she could trust him, revealed the full screen. She dropped into her chair. “Remember how I thought someone tampered with the samples when we crashed with the asteroids?”

“With no proof,” Zuko reminded her, leaning over to see the screen better, one hand resting on the back of Katara’s chair.

“Here’s your proof, Your Honor. Two of the samples are reading as inhuman.”

“Inhuman.” The word tasted bitter in his mouth. “Meaning?”

“No A-to-G, C-to-T in the DNA. How else do you want me to say it? Two of our crewmates are not human.” She looked up at him. “And you cannot tell anyone. Not even the little group of us from the secret meeting. I have no way of knowing who these samples belonged to, meaning I can’t trust anyone on board.”

“Except me,” Zuko realized. 

Katara nodded. “Except you. Don’t make me regret it.”

—————

“When?”

“Five more minutes.”

—————

“Why do I feel like you’re always in here?”

Unbeknownst to Toph, Sokka’s face turned guilty. “I get hungry a lot, okay? Why are _you_ always in here? And why are you laying on the table?”

“I have nothing better to do. And the floor’s dirty.”

Sokka surveyed the rows of chip bags on the cart against the wall. “I didn’t think you cared about dirty.”

Toph arched her back in a stretch, careful not to knock her helmet off of the table. “Katara yelled at me about diseases last time she found me on the floor. And I guess you don’t care about dirty either.”

“Why do you say that?” 

“Nav doesn’t normally reek of bleach. Something pretty dirty must have happened in there that needed to be cleaned up.”

“It’s clean, isn’t it?” Sokka opened a bag of chips and plopped down at the table Toph had stretched out on. “Done with tasks already?”

Toph mock-saluted. “Aye-aye, Captain. The trash has been sent off into the great beyond.” She shoved her hand into the chip bag and popped one into her mouth. “Ew. What kind are these?”

“Salt and vinegar.”

“The jalapeño ones are officially not the most disgusting kind we’ve shared.” She wiped her fingers on the arm of his suit.

Sokka dusted the crumbs from his arm onto the floor. “You don’t have to ‘share’ them if you don’t like them.”

Toph grabbed another chip from the bag. “Who else am I supposed to bother?”

“You’re a menace to society.”

“That’s why they stuck me on a spaceship away from society.”

Sokka watched Yue approach the cafeteria from weapons. As soon as she was almost close enough to step inside, the cafeteria doors slammed shut. “Yue, you good?”

“Yeah,” she called through the door. “Kind of hungry though.”

—————

“Now.”

—————

_“Oxygen levels depleting in: 30...29…”_

Yue yelled through the cafeteria door over the sound of the ship’s alarm. “I’ll get it in here and run around to admin to fix it!”

Sokka leapt up from the table and dropped the chips on Toph’s stomach. “Yue, no! It’s not safe!”

“Someone has to!”

_“24...23…”_

“I’ve got to go!” Her boots retreated from the cafeteria door.

“She’ll be fine,” Toph said from her spot on the table. “And we’ll be fine as long as she can run fast enough to fix it before we die.”

Sokka paced nervously. “I’m worried about her.”

“Hey.” Toph sat up and reached out a hand, waiting on him to take it. “She can take care of herself.”

Defeated, Sokka sat back down at the table, still holding Toph’s hand. _“18...17…”_

“Why isn’t anyone going to help Yue fix it?”

“Something tells me we’re not the only ones who got locked in. She may be our only chance.”

—————

Yue punched the code in O2 faster than she ever had before. She raced out of O2, frantic to get to admin in time to enter the override code. 

_“14...13…”_

She stumbled into the wall when she got to the machine. She was surprised that one, storage hadn’t also been locked up, and two, no one else had already come to admin to enter the code.

“May we always have our own backs,” she said aloud, flipping open the panel to enter the code.

She never heard the vent swing open behind her.

—————

_“11...10…”_

“You should know.” Toph sounded more scared than she wanted to. “The tank in my suit is connected to Space Brain. If we lose oxygen, we can share my helmet until the doors open and we can get to yours.” 

“We’re not going to lose oxygen,” Sokka said firmly.

“We’re not.” Toph squeezed his hand. “But if we do, we’ll have enough to last us until we can get the ship fixed.”

_“7...6… Oxygen levels restored.”_

They both breathed deeply, still clutching at each other. “She did it,” Sokka whispered, eyes shut.

“Where is she?”

“The doors are still shut. She’ll be right there when they open.”

She wasn’t right there when they opened. Sokka pulled Toph down from the table. “Let’s see if she’s still in admin.”

—————

“That was close.”

“Only because you waited to strike in admin instead of using the vent to get her in O2. Why did you let her finish putting in the code?”

“It’s not as much of a challenge if we take them all out at once. And how was I supposed to know she’d take so long?”

“We have to account for these things. No more waiting on them to move. We move first.”

“You’re acting like I didn’t get the job done.”

“You did. Try to be more careful next time.”

“Next time it’s your turn again. Try to make less of a mess than you did in electrical.”

—————

The next morning, Yue’s white suit hung next to Haru’s yellow one in the cafeteria. They had the world’s second funeral in space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP white and yellow :( Those impostors are moving faster and faster. // You guys are SERIOUSLY amazing! If this story gains a little more traction, I might have a little treat for y’all (and it may not may not be an impostor reveal.)


	7. lately i’ve been, i’ve been losing sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emergency Meeting: The Sequel: 2.0
> 
> They try to make progress, and they do, but they’re also extremely tired. Delirium-induced shenanigans ensue.

The hallways seemed a little darker, the air a little colder. No one wanted to admit that they were afraid to be alone, or to share their daily schedule as they openly had in the past. The crew of twelve dropped to a crew of ten and they still had months until they were scheduled to land on Earth. If they survived that long.

The ship’s atmosphere changed after Yue’s death. Haru’s had been harrowing enough, what with the obvious murder scene, but the crewmates naievely clung to the hope that maybe it was just a freak accident. Yue’s death solidified the horrible truth: they were being picked off one by one for reasons unknown.

A few days passed without incident. No malfunctions or sabotages, no murder, no more medical surprises. The return to “normal” did nothing to ease anyone’s nerves; deep down, they all knew they were sitting turtleducks.

While half of the crew blissfully slept, the other half met in the medbay, yet again.

Exhaustion swept over the group. They formed another rough circle - Katara slouched in her chair, twisting her loose hair anxiously, Aang stood next to her, Zuko perched on the edge of Katara’s desk, Sokka sat at the end of one of the beds, and Toph slumped on the floor, resting against Sokka’s legs - all trying to keep their sagging eyes open with varying degrees of success. 

Then they got a new piece of information that seemed to wake them up.

“What do you mean the command center won’t send help?” Aang was furious. He paced around the medbay angrily. “People are dying up here!”

Sokka pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. Up here, a hundred million miles away from Earth. There’s nothing they can do. It’s not like there’s a manual for this.”

He was right, of course. There was no precedent for this sort of thing, no laws defining what could or couldn’t be done. They were on their own.

Toph reached out to still Sokka’s anxiously bouncing leg- it was getting uncomfortable to lean on. “Well, did they say _anything_ helpful? Is there gonna be an investigation when we get back?”

Zuko shook his head, his bangs flying into and out of his eyes with the movement. “I don’t know how there would be. We can’t rope off areas of the ship as crime scenes because we need access to those rooms to keep the ship going. And we have to clean everything to prevent biocontamination. There won’t be much evidence other than our own testimonies, and those never hold up in court because they’re unreliable.”

“We have…” Sokka fished for the right wording, acutely aware of the sets of eyes on him, “... _unusual_ discretion over these circumstances. That’s what I was told.”

Aang stopped his pacing. “Meaning what?” 

“Meaning we have the green light to handle this however we see fit.” 

That caused Katara to snap out of whatever trance she’d been sitting in, quietly listening to the conversation. Her hair fell from her fingers. “Wait, what?”

Sokka fidgeted with the sleeve of his pajama shirt, still trying to choose his words carefully. “There’s already going to be a massive cover-up for our lost crewmates; the command center made that very clear. We don’t know what else is going to happen between now and when we make it home. We have explicit permission- no, explicit instructions to do whatever we have to do in order to bring everyone home safely.”

“So if we catch someone in the act, we, what?” Zuko uncrossed one arm and gestured tightly with it. “Arrest them? Kill them?” 

“No,” Aang immediately said, “we can’t kill anyone. If we do, we’re no better than them.”

“Right, and you’re willing to share a cabin with whoever it is?” Zuko waited for Aang to respond. 

“Whoa, hey,” the younger boy stood his ground, but alarm seeped into his words. “I don’t think anyone should be killed, including me!”

Katara’s jaw set firmly. “We’ll do what we have to do.” 

The air conditioning system on the ship hummed to life, reminding Sokka of another item of business. “Zuko, any leads on the vents?”

“They’re interconnected like we thought, but they’re not all connected.” Zuko crossed to Katara’s white board and uncapped a marker. “They’re sectioned off geographically.” He hastily drew a rough map of the ship — a large circle with squares representing each room — and put tiny X’s where the vents belonged. “So if I were in nav I couldn’t get to security, but I could go to weapons or shields.” He circled each of those markings, identifying them as connected.

Aang studied the sketch of the map. “What about the vent right outside of nav? That doesn’t lead to the same places?”

“That one,” Zuko underlined the vent in question, “leads to the cafeteria and to admin.” Both of those were underlined as well.

 _To admin._ Whoever killed Yue hadn’t come from the cafeteria. If they’d been lurking in the vents, it would have been the one in the hallway outside of navigation.

She would’ve run right past them.

The cogs started turning in Sokka’s brain. Something was missing from the map.

Zuko boxed in the appropriate X’s. “The vents in both engines go to the reactor.”

Katara jerked her head in the direction of the vent in the medbay. “Where’d you come from when you wound up here?”

“Electrical. The same vent system leads to security.”

 _Security,_ Sokka realized. That’s what was missing from the map. “Draw the cameras in.”

Zuko turned back to the board, marker raised. He hesitated.

“You don’t know where they are, do you?” Katara asked, only mocking _a little._

He snapped. “I don’t get put on security a lot, okay?”

Aang took the marker from Zuko. “I got it.” He drew big dots in the rough area of their locations. As an afterthought, he added V-lines coming out of them. “To show how far the cameras can see,” he explained, capping the marker and handing it back to a sulking Zuko.

Sokka stared at the map. “My guess is whoever got Yue was in the vents. Otherwise, she would have seen them when she was fixing the oxygen. They had to go in at some point, and it wasn’t through the one in the cafeteria. The cameras outside of admin and nav would have seen whoever was nearby-”

“So all we have to do is figure out who was watching the cams,” Katara finished his thought excitedly. “They’ll know who was there!”

“Way to steal my thunder,” Sokka grumbled. 

Zuko hated to rain on their little parade, but the siblings had overlooked some crucial facts. “Two things-“

“Do you have to ruin everything?”

“-first,” he ignored Katara’s interruption, “there’s a chance no one was in security when it happened. Secondly, if someone had seen it, they would have reported it by now, unless whoever was on cams is the other impostor.”

Aang’s brow furrowed. “Impostor? Why’d you call them that?”

“They’re pretending to be one of us instead of some kind of inhuman monster.”

As odd as the phrase was, _inhuman monster_ was on par with the rest of Zuko’s lame but biting insults, so no one thought much of it until Katara exploded on him.

“I trusted you with _one_ piece of sensitive information!”

“I was playing it off just fine until you opened your mouth!”

“How could you!”

“Inhuman.” Sokka processed that slowly over the bickering of the two crewmates. It hadn’t just been a weird word choice on Zuko’s part. “So, alien. There are aliens on board posing as humans.”

If he could go back in time, he’d go to the day he signed up for the space program and slap himself stupid.

Aang eyed his seething friends suspiciously. “What happened to trusting each other?”

“Yeah,” Katara glowered at Zuko, “what happened to that?”

Zuko threw his hands in the air. “It was an _accident_.”

“No,” Aang backtracked, “you both knew there were aliens on board and didn’t tell anyone?”

“ _Oh my god will you shut up?_ ” For the first time in a while, Toph’s grouchy voice rang out from the floor. “Seriously, I fall asleep for five minutes, and I wake up to you guys screaming at each other about aliens.”

Katara showed her no pity. “Try staying awake then.” 

“Oh, _forgive me_ for not staying awake while you guys drew pretty pictures that I can’t see. They’re beautiful. Bring it home and stick it on your fridge.”

Sokka reached down to ruffle Toph’s hair— the equivalent of trying to pet a bear. “That pretty picture is a map of the ship that we used to plot out which vents are connected.” 

Toph swatted Sokka’s hand away from her hair but stayed curled up against his leg. “BFD. I wanna know how someone got in the vents after you guys locked them all up.”

For someone who’d slept through a chunk of the meeting, Toph managed to find a critical question that the others hadn’t even considered. 

Aang thought about it. “The lights turned off, remember? They probably unscrewed the ones they needed open when no one could see them.” 

Sokka groaned. “That still isn’t immediately helpful. We can’t strategize how to avoid these impostors if we don’t know who they are.” 

“How are we sure these are aliens and not psychopaths?” Toph looked like she could very well be asleep again, eyes shut and breathing even, but her voice showed little signs of sleepiness. “I mean, I’ll kick their asses regardless. I just want to know.”

Katara’s fingers flew over her keyboard with practiced precision. “Two of the blood samples don’t read as human. It would have taken a sizable error on my part to botch the results that badly. I’m not perfect, but I know I didn’t do that.”

Toph unapologetically yawned big and loud. “So out of the other five, who looks the least human? Anyone got horns or tentacles I should know about?”

“It’s not a matter of who _looks_ human.” Katara worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “But, for what it’s worth, I’ve seen Jet’s burn up close and personal. It’s real skin.”

Sokka shrugged. “If that’s how we’re doing this, then trust me, Suki’s real, too.” _Punch._ “Ow! Toph!”

Aang stepped up to the makeshift map again, focused on the X’s. “I’m going to say something crazy. What if we didn’t close the vents again?”

“You’re right, that is crazy,” Zuko agreed. “How delirious are you right now?”

“Think about it. We don’t know who they’re pretending to be, or why they’re here, or how they choose who to go after next. They didn’t kill again until after we screwed the vents shut. They may have thought we were onto them when we did that.”

“We _are_ onto them.”

“But they don’t know _how_ onto them we are. If we don’t provoke them again, maybe we can all make it back alive.” Aang looked between the crewmates for any semblance of validation. “They’ll lay low, then next time they’ll have their guard down. We’ll monitor the vents and catch them before anyone gets hurt. If nothing else, it’ll buy us time to figure more stuff out. What do you guys think?”

Zuko stood from his spot on the desk and stretched. “I think playing directly into their hands is a bad idea.” 

“Not if we’re ready for them,” Toph slurred, barely coherent.

“I think we could do it.” Katara looked to the vent in the corner of the medbay again, anxiously this time. “I don’t like the idea of being in here alone with an open vent, though.”

Zuko picked up the roll of paper towels and bopped Katara on the head with it. “You’re armed and dangerous, remember? No killer alien stands a chance against you and your mighty sword.”

“Hey!” Katara reached for the roll, but Zuko kept it out of her grasp. 

“Afraid of a little payback, Katara?” When she jumped up from the chair to snatch it away, he held his arm above his head, the towels way out of her reach. 

“No, just afraid of _dying_.” She still couldn’t reach the roll, and he wasn’t even trying to stop her. She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not afraid to climb you like a tree to get that back.”

Zuko froze awkwardly. “Maybe that means something else where you come from, but I’m pretty sure you don’t know what it means everywhere else.”

“She does,” Sokka sputtered, “she’s just stupid and probably delirious. Go back to hating each other, this is weird.”

Behind Zuko, Aang silently climbed onto the desk. He took advantage of the awkward situation and freed the roll from Zuko’s hand. He leapt from the desk elegantly and landed in a deep bow, presenting the towels to Katara. “For you, m’lady.”

Katara curtsied and accepted the spoils of the childish war. “Thank you, good sir.”

“On that note, I think we all need some rest.” Sokka stood up and almost faceplanted from the 96 pounds of dead weight attached to his left leg. “Toph. _Toph._ ”

She grunted in her sleep. 

“Fine then.” Sokka bent down and pried her arms from around him, then almost effortlessly pulled her up and slung her over his shoulder. “I’ll try not to drop you, but if you hit your head on any of the doors, that’s on you.”

Toph mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “I’ll kill you.”

“Not if the aliens do it first,” Zuko tried to joke in passing. The joke didn’t really land, but neither did any of his other attempts at humor.

They said their goodnights and headed to the cabins, not certain of what the next day would bring.


	8. you know the galaxies of my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone’s trying to weed out who they can’t trust. Results vary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tidbits of canon/canon themes throughout this one. It was interesting to try and incorporate those elements in an AU. (+ ADHD representation and my take on the ghosts from the game)

Aang rounded the corner in electrical and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Katara at the wires box. “What are you doing in here?”

Katara shrugged, still focused on connecting the wires appropriately. “My job.”

“I didn’t know you ever left the medbay,” Aang admitted, stepping over to the distributor.

“I have other tasks, you know,” Katara teased. “I just camp out there when I’m done with everything else on the ship. I’ve always got work to do.”

“Yeah, you stay busier than anyone I’ve ever met.”

True to his reputation, Aang calibrated the distributor perfectly on the first try. He had no reason to stay in electrical after that, but he also wasn’t about to leave Katara alone. The action almost felt odd, because she was alone most of the time anyway, but Aang figured they were safer together anyway.

“Is being by yourself so often scary?”

Katara groaned. Aang didn’t think his question warranted such a frustrated response, but then he saw the hopelessly tangled blue and yellow wires in her hands and relaxed a little.

“Yeah,” Katara said, “especially with the vent being unlocked.”

A pang of guilt shot through Aang— it had been his idea to leave them open, after all. 

“But I get good company, so I’m not too worried for my safety.”

The guilt was replaced with a flutter in his chest. He made it a point to visit at least once a day, almost always toting candy to share. So what if his drop-ins had the dual-motive of _make sure she’s okay_ and _I just want to see her_ , because this made it all worth it. She was clearly, _finally_ flirting back. 

Aang knew he had to play his cards right for this to pay off. He took a quiet, deep breath. “Like who?”

Katara pulled on a knot in the wires. “Jet comes by a lot.”

The deep breath was for _absofuckinglutely nothing_ because all of the air got knocked out of Aang’s chest. The words flew out automatically with his breath. “That’s your idea of good company?”

“Is there something wrong with him?”

 _He’s not me!_ That wouldn’t convince her. But maybe some insider information would do the trick. Aang casually leaned against the wall closest to him. “Well, Sokka doesn’t seem to like him very much. I don’t know why, but it’s probably for a good reason.”

He could practically hear Katara’s eyes rolling. “Yeah, he saw me kiss Jet the other day and got grossed out because baby sisters can’t possibly be sexual beings.”

Aang felt his eyes grow three sizes bigger. “You kissed that guy?”

“Yeah? And?”

 _And he’s not me!_ “I’m just surprised,” Aang tried to say coolly. 

Having untangled the wires, Katara successfully connected the yellow one to its port. “I don’t get it. It’s not like he walked in on us sleeping together.”

“You _slept with that guy?_ ”

“It was a figure of speech!”

Funnily enough, Aang had never heard that figure of speech before. 

“And so what if I did?”

Again with the hypotheticals. Aang wanted real answers. “Do you want to?”

Katara froze with her back to him. _Uh-oh._ “That is— why do you care about my personal decisions?” 

“It’s not about that, it’s your body and you can do what you want,” Aang rushed to defend himself while trying to keep his foot out of his mouth. “But why Jet?”

“Again.” Katara’s icy tone could have cut straight through him. “Is there something wrong with him? Or are you just jealous?”

When she turned to face him, she saw the pink in his cheeks and that was good enough for her. Katara slammed the wire box shut. “I cannot believe you.”

“What do you want me to say? That I’m not upset I didn’t know I didn’t even have a shot with the prettiest, smartest girl on the ship?”

Katara stalked past him. “Flattery won’t work.”

Aang had never felt more helpless. “It’s supposed to be a compliment!” 

“I’m supposed to be happy that you’re just like every other guy on this ship?”

“Katara, wait, please.” Katara paused against her better judgment, curious as to what Aang could possibly have to say in his defense. “I’m really trying to look out for you. Because you’re my friend.”

Katara did her best to clear her head. She knew he was sincere, albeit stupid. “I know. I appreciate the thought. But I promise I’m capable of looking out for myself.”

Alone in electrical, Aang’s feet felt glued to the floor. His whole body was numb. How could he have messed up that badly? Why couldn’t she see what he meant, that aside from his feelings for her he wanted to keep her safe? Katara _needed_ to be kept safe and alive, if not for her own good, then for Aang’s peace of mind. 

He replayed their entire conversation in his head. _I promise I’m capable of looking out for myself._ Katara said that, but she didn’t even flinch when Aang walked in. She either trusted him or she hadn’t heard him. 

Aang remembered the secret medbay meetings, too. How they all needed to be able to trust each other. How Katara knew about the so-called _impostors_ and only told Zuko of all people, even with the way the doors always seemed to close behind him. 

_Trusting the sketchy guy. Keeping information from everyone. Too comfortable when Aang unexpectedly walked into electrical._

Katara obviously needed more help staying safe than she’d let on. 

—————

Suki hurriedly entered her ID code and set up the proper shield formation. According to the projection of the asteroids, the left side of the ship needed some extra coverage on the off-chance there was another mishap. She had full confidence that there wouldn’t be another mishap, though; clearing a path through the asteroids was next on her task list, and she’d be damned if any of the ship’s ongoing problems were her fault. 

There was also the lingering fear of staying in one place for too long, especially alone.

She nearly leapt out of her skin when the vent kicked on behind her until she realized it was just the air, not a murderer. Suki laughed awkwardly at herself and shook her head. 

“You’re going crazy, girl.”

It was a short walk up from shields to weapons, where she’d clear the ship’s path. There was a camera right outside of navigation. Even if the worst happened, whoever was on security would see it happen, and she’d get the medical attention required, and they’d know who the killer was, and everything would be okay. That’s what she told herself, anyway. 

Still, she remained on high alert during her short trek. Out of caution she peeked into navigation when she walked past. Toph sat at the ship’s controls, staring out into literal space. Suki turned to continue her walk and immediately pivoted around when the obvious dawned on her: Toph had no business in navigation.

She approached slowly. “Hey. Whatcha doing?”

“Nothing.” The younger girl wasn’t avoiding the question— she quite literally had nothing to do.

“If you’re just looking for a place to sit, maybe find a room that doesn’t have so many vents nearby. You know, for your own safety,” Suki advised her, now standing at her side.

Toph crossed her arms. “There’s not a single safe place on this ship. Besides, you’re the only one who’s come over here.” 

Suki sighed and readjusted her half-ponytail. “I haven’t seen much of anyone either. Sadly, it’s probably better that way. I wish this whole thing never happened.”

“I wish I knew who to trust. And I wish there was something to do other than sit around and hope no one kills me.” 

Maybe out of compassion, maybe out of the need to let Toph know she could trust her, an idea popped into Suki’s head that may have been certifiably crazy. She just hoped it was worth it.

“You want to help me with asteroids?”

Toph waved a hand in front of her own face. “That’ll go over well.”

“No, really,” Suki said. “It could work.”

Toph mulled it over. “What are you thinking?”

That’s how they wound up in weapons together, Suki carefully watching the radar, Toph excitedly controlling the lasers. 

“On your right. A little higher.”

_Blast._

“Lower this time. Wait, it looks like that one’s going to miss us. Stay low but recenter.” 

_Blast._

“I can hear them breaking apart from in here,” Toph marveled, basking in the sheer power of having actual lasers at her command.

Suki smiled proudly. “You’re doing great.”

They went on until a wide path was available, Suki laughing at the _pew pew_ sound effects Toph made with every shot. Suki couldn’t help but notice how disappointed Toph seemed when the job was done. 

Toph hadn’t killed her yet, so she probably wouldn’t at all. Though rough on the outside, Suki had a now-confirmed suspicion that the other girl had a soft heart. Surely she wouldn’t be capable of such violence.

“Can I ask you something?” 

Toph begrudgingly let go of the lasers. “Sure.”

“You said you didn’t know who to trust,” Suki started. “Do you at least know who you don’t trust?”

Toph cracked her knuckles. “I have a pretty good idea.” She clapped a hand on Suki’s back. “Thanks for the lasers. It was fun.”

She turned and headed to the cafeteria before Suki could ask more questions or promise to let her do it again sometime.

—————

Azula stepped into the reactor, saw who was in there, and nearly turned around and left. She hadn’t seen much of Jet since their _unfortunate_ interaction in electrical, and she wasn’t in the mood to unpack whatever trauma he probably attributed toward her. 

She pursed her lips. No one got to control Azula’s actions, especially not some hick from the sticks who’d be lucky if he ever _dreamed_ of reaching her potential. Azula confidently marched into the reactor and went straight to unlock the manifolds. 

Jet didn’t even look up from starting the reactor.

 _Of all the nerve._ He could at least acknowledge her. Then again, he might still be scared of her. Azula typically enjoyed intimidating people, but it didn’t sit well with her that Jet was likely scared for the wrong reasons. 

She didn’t kill Haru. But she knew it certainly looked as if she had.

Azula took her time with her short task, waiting to see if it would ever come. No yelling, no accusations, nothing. It almost angered her. She’d had days to think up responses to Jet’s imaginary questions and solidify her defense, only to be blatantly ignored. 

_Whatever._ She had other, better things to be doing than waiting on the bare minimum from someone who didn’t deserve her time.

When she got to the doorway, he finally spoke up. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

That’s it? A stupid question about the supernatural? “Why?”

“Sometimes when I swipe my card, the machine dings twice. We always swiped in together.”

Azula didn’t know what to make of that. Despite her brother’s claims, she knew the machine wasn’t broken, but there wasn’t a better explanation to Jet’s theory. Unless he was right. 

“I like to think he’s still helping out around here,” Jet went on. “Swiping in, fixing wires and such.” 

_Ah._ This was his way of coping, then. It was nothing like Azula hearing her mother’s voice in the back of her mind, always trying to correct Azula or spouting loving comments she didn’t mean. 

“I haven’t touched his bed. Don’t want to make it, because then it’s like he was never there.”

A sour expression crossed Azula’s face. Ty Lee had voiced similar concerns about taking Yue’s bed after her untimely passing. She’d nearly pulled the plug on moving into Azula’s room, and had only gone through with it after Azula convinced her it was fine because they’d had the conversation about Ty Lee and Yue switching rooms before the bed became permanently available. 

She ignored the feeling that the two of them were never truly alone in their room.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Jet repeated, still not facing her.

 _Mother. Haru. Yue._ “No,” Azula decided, leaving all of those thoughts in the reactor for Jet to deal with.

—————

“—when we landed on Mars, it was so red! Like, we knew it would be, but it still surprised me—”

Sokka vaguely recalled Zuko telling him about when this happened to him. Yet here he was, sitting in the rolling chair in communications while waiting on a download to finish, and there Ty Lee was, accepting power she’d diverted from electrical and sharing her whole life story.

“—not the first people up there, but still among the first people to go! And we’re still tracking red dust everywhere, I don’t know how that’s even possible—”

She wasn’t annoying, Sokka decided. Just chatty. He didn’t mind it at all; it wasn’t hard to keep up with everything she said, even though she changed tracks a lot. For once, his ADHD brain was being helpful.

“—wish I could have taken some pictures—”

Even the way Ty Lee constantly brushed her hair behind her ears wasn’t distracting.

“—selfie from Mars would have blown up on Insta—”

Or the way she touched her face without seeming to notice she was doing it.

“—couldn’t find Mai though, so even if we could have taken pictures, they probably would have been bad because she’s the best at taking them—”

The way she twisted from side-to-side wasn’t distracting either, but the way her ponytail swung around was. 

“Have you ever been tested for ADHD?” 

Ty Lee stopped mid-sentence and shook her head. Her ponytail jiggled. “Nope. Why?”

“I didn’t get diagnosed until right before college, and it was like, all of this stuff I thought was normal for my whole life turned out to be unique. It made life so much easier when I figured out all of my feelings and habits were symptoms, not me going crazy or being too emotional.” Sokka leaned back in the chair and stretched out. “Girls don’t get diagnosed as often, so I was just curious.”

Ty Lee tilted her head. “Why don’t girls get diagnosed as often?” 

Sokka shrugged. “Girls aren’t usually walking stereotypes of hyperactivity. Instead of running around and being aggressive, they do stuff like talk all the time, or play with their hair or nails a lot.”

“Do I do that?”

“You’ve done all of that just since you walked in.”

Ty Lee noticed her hand pushing back her hair even as Sokka said it. She consciously returned her hand to her side. “Huh.”

“I’m not a doctor or anything, so I don’t know. But maybe it’s worth looking into.” Sokka racked his brain. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. What were you saying?”

What _was_ she saying? Ty Lee shrugged. 

_Damn it._ If Ty Lee really did have ADHD, Sokka knew there was a slim chance they’d figure out where she’d been in her story. He couldn’t remember either. “It was something about Mai,” he tried to prompt her. “From when we were on Mars.”

“I couldn’t find her…” Ty Lee trailed off, searching for whatever she’d said. “Yeah, I don’t know. It was right before we were leaving, too. I think she went to look for Aang when we couldn’t find him, and then he was just grabbing more rocks for Katara.”

Sokka had almost forgotten about how they couldn’t find Aang when it was time to go. Even Zuko, notorious for being able to locate Aang, had no idea where he’d run off to. They were lucky Mai found him not far from the ship, lugging a chunk of porous rock for Katara to dig into. He was a sweet kid, but somehow always managed to run off at weird times.

It was ironic, Sokka thought, that when Aang temporarily went missing a few weeks ago, their biggest concern had been about his vegan dinner going cold before he got back. If the same thing happened today, they’d be panicked about his livelihood. 

Another thought occurred to Sokka. He didn’t know much about aliens because, well, no one did, but he was pretty sure aliens didn’t have ADHD. He didn’t know Ty Lee well, but he could probably count on her being human.

—————

Swipe. 

_Beep._

Swipe. 

_Beep._

Swipe. 

_Beep._

Kick machine in frustration. Swipe again. 

_Ding._

Yeah, Zuko had the art of swiping his ID card down to a science. A flimsy, theoretical science, but a science no less. 

He’d managed to avoid everyone for an entire day, which felt like an immense, unusual stroke of luck. He didn’t need anyone else to be near him if the doors started acting up, because then they’d think it was his doing, and Zuko didn’t know how many times he could say _it’s not me_ before everyone stopped believing him. He wouldn’t believe it if it were anyone else in his shoes.

The open wire box caught his eye. He frowned. With a ship gone haywire and at least one, maybe two murderers on board, there wasn’t room for any sloppiness like that. It _technically_ wasn’t his job and therefore not his responsibility to do anything related to the wires, but if it was still open the next day and people started asking _who was the last one in there_ , he’d have to explain why he didn’t fix it. He walked over to snap it shut.

“What are you doing?”

Zuko whirled around, ready to either defend his actions or his life, and relaxed when he saw Mai leaning against the doorway. “You scared me.”

A rare smirk appeared on Mai’s face. “Call it payback for when you climbed out of the vent in security.”

Okay, yeah, he probably deserved that after scaring her then. 

“I was on my way to my room when I heard you kick the card machine. It’s a little late to be swiping in.”

“The box was cracked open,” Zuko explained, choosing to gloss over the fact that Mai knew about his ongoing battle with the card reader. “I was just closing it.”

The smirk disappeared as Mai walked over to him. “It shouldn’t be. I closed it when I left hours ago.”

Zuko pressed it shut. “Well, now it’s closed again.”

Mai reached past him and opened the box. All of the wires were either connected to the wrong ports or not connected at all. “How did that happen?”

 _Shit._ Crawling out of a vent, doors unexplainably closing, swiping in late, and now the wires were mangled right after he touched the box. Zuko’s case was not looking good. “I didn’t do it.”

“I didn’t say you did.” Mai stared at the disheveled box, annoyed, and exhaled through her nose. 

That wasn’t good enough for Zuko. “But do you believe me?”

“You don’t have a reason to fuck up the mission.” 

Neither was that answer. “It’s a yes or no question.”

“Yes.” Mai connected the wires appropriately. 

“I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. But it’s like every time I turn around something else is messed up and it looks like I did it. I think people are afraid of me even though I’m not doing anything.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

Zuko ran a tired hand through his hair. “You’re different. You’re not afraid of anyone.”

Mai clicked her tongue. “I’m a little afraid of Azula.”

That was fair. Frustrating, but fair.

Mai glanced over to Zuko and read every microexpression on his face. “Stop worrying, okay? We don’t have to tell anyone the box was messed up.”

He knew Mai was trying to help, but it wasn’t working. Two voices in his head shouted, one insisting on reporting it immediately, the other demanding self-preservation. Zuko listened to the voice he figured was right. “I think we should. But I don’t have an explanation, or any proof that it wasn’t me, and I don’t know who was here before me but after you. It needs to get reported.”

“Does that have to happen right now?” Mai clicked the box shut, wires in the correct place. 

If it was entirely up to Zuko, it would never get reported because it never would have happened. The longer he put it off, the more suspicious he’d look. That didn’t mean he _wanted_ to do it, though. It was basically as good as a confession. 

“It probably should,” he reluctantly said.

Mai ran her fingers up his arms and linked them behind his head, pleased when Zuko’s hands instinctively settled on her waist in response. “I’ve got a single room now that Ty Lee’s out. It gets too quiet.”

“It’s supposed to be quiet at night,” he thumbed at her hips. 

“Can you keep me company?”

The opposing voices inside Zuko screamed for different reasons now. “The box—”

Mai raised to her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. She pulled back before she could get carried away and looked directly into his eyes. “It’s a yes or no question,” she mimicked him. 

She stepped away and walked out of admin, leaving a stunned Zuko in front of the wire box. Mai knew without looking back that he’d be right behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s been forever and a day since the last update, you guys know how life is. Every single one of your comments has made me smile- thank you so much, it truly means the world to me. And I love hearing your theories! Keep them coming!


	9. that's sus, buddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New alliances form and new tensions rise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *as promised in the tags, nothing graphic is included in this story, but Azula's a little crass when discussing a previous murder. genuine apologies if you're disturbed*

_One more task._ Suki had one more task, and then she could run off to her cabin and lock the door and live to see another day. All she had to do was calibrate the distributor, which, admittedly, was not her strong suit, but she wasn't the worst at it either. She rounded the corner in electrical and her breath caught in her throat. Zuko was already in there, staring at the download screen. _Okay, okay. Take it easy. He's just doing his job. And standing right over the vent._

Zuko felt the set of eyes on him before he knew who they belonged to. "What?"

"Oh, nothing." Suki glanced between his face and his feet, unable to shake the idea that _he could end me right now and slip right through there and no one would be the wiser._

Zuko followed her line of sight to the vent beneath him. "I can't control where the download screen is, okay? If you don't want to be in here with me, just leave."

"I have a task to do."

"Then do it and leave. I'll be here, minding my own business."

Suki set about timing when to stop the spinning circles of the distributor, but she couldn't stop herself from stealing apprehensive glances. Every time he so much as shifted his weight, Suki flinched, and she had to restart the calibration process in its entirety. Zuko was over it by the fourth time Suki restarted.

"Seriously? I can't scratch my head?"

"I'm sorry, okay? Can you blame me?"

"Yeah, actually. I have to stay here until this is done," he jabbed a finger at the screen, "but you could be out of here by now, and you're not."

"So _you_ don't trust _me?_ Is that what you're saying?"

The space between them felt charged, spurred on by every millimeter the download bar increased and every completed cycle on the distributor. 

The lights dimmed, then went out entirely.

Suki wasn't about to sit around and wait for the worst. She went around the corner and yanked open the breaker, flipping every single switch that didn't shine bright green. The lights on the ship hummed back to life. Suki huffed, irritated that Zuko hadn't even _tried_ to fix the electricity problem. She wanted to go around the corner and give him a piece of her mind.

Something, probably instincts, glued her feet to the floor. What if she went back there and he'd disappeared through the vents? What if he lied in wait, ready to strike and run? Or, maybe worse, what if someone had crawled through the vents and killed _him_ while she was fixing the lights? Surely she would have heard that, right? 

Suki took a deep breath and inched toward the edge of the room. She could do this. All she had to do was calibrate the damn distributor and she'd be on her way. She inched a little closer. Approximately two minutes stood between right now and the guaranteed safety of her bed. She was at the edge of the wall now. One more step and she'd be back where she was before the lights went out.

She took that last step.

There was Zuko, standing in exactly the same place, looking just as bored as before. Suki crossed her arms. "Really?"

Zuko threw his hands up defensively. "What did I do now?"

"You didn't even bother to go fix the lights?"

"I figured you would! And you wanted as much space between us as possible. Sorry for respecting your boundaries."

"Don't you even try to gaslight me right now."

"Do you even know what gaslighting is?"

Suki pointed at him. "That! That right there is gaslighting!"

"Uh, everything okay in here?"

Both of them froze at the sound of Sokka's voice. He entered the room cautiously, hands shoved in his pockets. 

Suki turned back to the distributor. "We're just jumpy."

" _She's_ just jumpy," Zuko corrected. "I literally haven't moved since before she came in."

"Including to help fix the lights."

"It's a one-person job."

"Why weren't you the one person to fix it then?"

"Are we really going to do this again?"

The unmistakable sound of the door sliding shut caused both of them to freeze. Suki inhaled sharply. This was it, this was how she was going to die, murdered with her boyfriend at the hands of someone who knew the law well enough to evade it. Zuko's harsh laughter brought her back to reality. "What's so funny?" She demanded.

"I didn't have you guys pegged as the killers, but it all makes sense now."

Suki shared a bewildered look with Sokka. "Wait, what?" He asked, dumbfounded.

"It was a trap," Zuko said. "Wait until someone was alone in here, make sure they'd be around for a while, kill the lights as the signal for the other to come, shut the door, escape through the vents. No one's the wiser."

She'd never considered that he'd be just as scared of her as she was of him. Her stomach twisted with an odd mix of guilt and relief. "Zuko," Suki took a step forward. "We're not going to kill you."

"Or anyone else," Sokka added for good measure.

"Sure you're not."

"We're not." Suki approached him again, gently, like one would go to a wild animal. 

"Yeah, aren't you the one the doors keep closing on anyway?" Sokka asked.

"That's not my fault! And the door didn't close until after you came in. I was all the way over here. I didn't do it." 

Suki finally reached her destination. She stuck her arm out slowly. "I believe you whether or not you believe me. Truce?"

Zuko stared at her hand, weighing his options, and finally took her hand and met her eyes. "Yeah. Okay."

Sokka cleared his throat. "Just for the record, I didn't close the door either."

"But you get it now, right?" Zuko looked between the couple desperately. "The door shut on its own. They keep doing that. And I don't think it's a coincidence."

"Me either," Sokka admitted. "But I don't know how anyone could rig that."

Suki reached out her other hand toward Sokka. He took it, linking the three of them. She squeezed both of their hands. "So, group project? We'll put our heads together, figure out what's going on with the doors," she looked at Zuko, "and clear your name once and for all?"

The men looked at one another, each thinking it over.

"I'm game if you are," Sokka said.

Zuko sighed. "Sure. Even if we solve this mystery, good luck clearing my name."

\-----

Ty Lee flinched every time an asteroid met its doom at her girlfriend's calculated strikes. She didn't have anything to do in weapons, but Azula asked her to come, so she'd tagged along, wanting to spend time together and wanting Azula to hurry up and finish her tasks already. 

"Why did you want me to be here?"

 _Blast._ "If another body turns up, I'm not taking the fall for it. I've got an alibi and a witness, and so do you."

Alibis. Witnesses. Nothing about _I just wanted to be with you_ in Azula's reasoning. Ty Lee gracefully sank to the floor and crossed her legs. "Are you done after this?"

"Why?" _Blast._ "Do you have somewhere better to be?"

Ty Lee sighed. "Nope."

She'd never say it aloud, especially not with Azula in earshot, but task dates had been more fun with Mai. And she wasn't even dating Mai. What was up with that? After moving out of their shared room, she hardly saw her friend anymore. Ty Lee supposed Mai spent all of her free time with Zuko now, and she _totally_ got that, but even while dating Azula, Ty Lee found time for their friendship. Why couldn't Mai do the same?

"It's important for us to be together," Azula pushed her bangs out of her face and adjusted her grip on the lasers, "because if we were ever apart, anyone could accuse either of us of committing heinous crimes. I wouldn't want that to happen to you."

Ty Lee tugged her braid free and separated it into three new strands. Not that she was bored, because Azula's not boring, but she wanted to keep busy. 

"You know who I think gets away with being alone too easily?" Azula paused, more to study the trajectory of the incoming asteroid than to hear Ty Lee's answer. "Katara."

"Why's that?"

The soft _click_ of boots alerted them to someone's presence. Fortunately, it was just Mai. Ty Lee waved at her from the floor, momentarily abandoning her braid. Mai nodded at her. Azula rolled on with business as usual.

"No one's watching over her shoulder. She could be anywhere at any time, and we'd all just assume she was still in the medbay."

Ty Lee considered it. "I don't know," she said doubtfully. "She does a bunch of health testing and stuff. She could easily kill us if she wanted to. And she's always looking out for her friends."

 _Blast._ "She's just trying to win their loyalty. Classic. Have you ever thought about how those health tests are always conveniently destroyed before she's supposed to send in the results? What's she covering up?" _Blast._ "What do you think, Mai?"

Mai walked past Azula and flipped the small switch against the far wall, accepting power she'd diverted there from electrical. "I don't think I've ever seen her kill a bug. People are harder than bugs."

Azula's lips pressed into a thin line. "She may have everyone else fooled, but not me. I don't trust her. I have a strong intuition about these kinds of things."

Mai and Ty Lee glanced at each other behind Azula's back. Neither of them were going to bring up the rare instances that her intuition had been wrong.

"What about Zuko?" Ty Lee asked.

"Hmm." _Blast._ "She may be the brains of the operation while he does the dirty work. Maybe the other way around."

"Maybe it's neither of them," Mai deadpanned.

"I get it." Azula laced her voice with sympathy. "You don't want to imagine the same hands that touch you so tenderly snapping someone's neck, like Yue's. But Zuzu's got some suppressed rage. Maybe he finally lost it." _Blast._

Mai's eyes flared, but she said nothing. Ty Lee gulped.

"To be honest, I don't think he has it in him. Five years ago, sure. Now he's more of the 'write an angry letter and yell about it' type." Azula obliterated the final asteroid on the radar. "Katara though? She tries too hard with the goody-goody act. Something's going on there."

Ty Lee watched her friend with wide eyes, braid forgotten about as she absently tugged on the loose hair. 

"Yeah," Mai finally said, cold as ice. "Maybe." She ducked out of weapons without another word.

Azula checked her task list on her wrist. "Would you look at that? I'm done for the day. Want to grab lunch before we go back to the room?"

"Sure." Ty Lee rose to her feet, her mind still reeling. She reached for Azula's hand, but her girlfriend didn't notice.

\-----

The slow trickle of gasoline was the only noise in the storage area until Jet walked in. Aang kept his mouth shut and his eyes peeled. He watched Jet stroll up to the wires box, open it, and then close it. Just like that, he was on his way out of storage. Aang couldn't believe Jet would so brazenly pretend to do a task in front of him.

"You fixed those pretty fast."

Jet stopped his pace and confidently faced Aang. "Didn't fix them. Just made sure it was done right."

Aang couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're going behind people and checking their work?"

Jet shrugged nonchalantly. "I figure if someone's slacking or messing things up intentionally, this is the fastest way to find out who it is."

"And who's checking you?"

"No one needs to. Unlike some people, I actually do my tasks, and I do them efficiently. That's how I have time to do this and squeeze in some quality time elsewhere."

Aang knew exactly where and who _elsewhere_ was. He stared Jet down, something dark bubbling in his veins. 

Jet simply stretched out his sleeve, flashing his task list at Aang. "Wanna see, little guy?"

Years of meditation and yoga and inner peace be damned- pure, unbridled rage clouded Aang's vision. Just as he was about to retaliate, an angel in the form of Katara floated out of admin. "You guys okay in here?"

Jet locked eyes with Aang, unaware of the brewing storm on the horizon. They wouldn't do this in front of her. "Yeah," he relaxed his arm, petty argument ended. "Never better."

Katara looked like she didn't entirely buy it, but neither man said anything more. "Alright."

Jet caught Katara's hand in his. "Stay safe out there," he said much more softly than before. "Not everyone's as trustworthy as us."

"Like who?"

For a brief moment, Aang thought Jet was going to say his name. His back went ramrod straight, so tense he'd probably snap if Jet accused him of anything.

Jet glanced at Aang out of the corner of his eye, confirming that he knew he had full control over the situation. "There's something about Zuko I don't like. Too many coincidences for my comfort."

"I really don't think-"

"Have fun trying to convince Sokka not to trust Zuko," Aang interrupted, steely gaze still set on Jet.

Jet stroked his thumb over Katara's hand, stealing her attention again. "Like I said, I can't explain it. Try to stay away from him, okay? I want to see you alive and well later."

Aang's fury was interrupted by a wet stream over his hand. He'd overfilled the gas canister, and gasoline splashed freely onto the floor. He snatched a rag from the storage cart, refusing to look where he heard an undeniable smacking of lips. Seconds later, Katara was on the floor next to Aang, helping him wipe up the mess.

"Are you listening to him?"

Katara scrubbed at a gas puddle. "I really hate to say it, but he may have a point."

All Aang could think about was when he'd told Katara to be wary of Jet and she'd brushed him off. Now Jet dropped Zuko's name and Katara was questioning her faith in him. 

"I thought you trusted Zuko now. And I thought you trusted me."

Katara stopped scrubbing and closed her eyes, summoning every ounce of patience in her body. "Is this about Jet again?"

"No," Aang truthfully told her. "It's about you. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I don’t think your head’s in the right place. You’re going to wind up hurt, or worse, and we can’t afford to lose you. I can’t lose you.”

Katara sat back on her knees silently. Aang wondered if he'd finally gotten through to her the right way, especially after all he'd done for her without her ever knowing. He never got his answer. Katara picked up her soiled rag and tossed it into the nearby bin before leaving him alone in storage.

The anger crept back in, more subdued, but ever-present. 

\-----

Cleaning the O2 filter lost its usual spark of joy. Nothing was fun anymore. Toph hated every minute she spent on the ship.

When she stepped out of O2, she flipped off the camera she knew was outside of navigation. Even that no longer made her happy. She heaved a heavy sigh and trudged toward the cafeteria, hoping that maybe the cart of potato chips was still out.

Then she heard it behind her. Extra steps.

She walked faster, looping through weapons to make it into the cafeteria. She would have heard the steps sooner if the person had come down the entire hallway. She didn't think she'd heard a vent open, so maybe they'd just come out of navigation, but _why weren't they talking to her?_

The steps also walked faster. She sped around the corner into the cafeteria, potato chips forgotten. Judging by the sound of the footsteps, there was enough distance between Toph and whoever the steps belonged to for her to disappear down one of the hallways and find someone, _anyone_ else. She just had to make the decision quickly.

Toph darted straight across the cafeteria, not sure where to go next. The medbay was nearest, but it was the most predictable. But Katara would also be in there, and they were less likely to die together. She impulsively ducked into the medbay. No one greeted her. Katara wasn't in there. Her heart sank as panic swelled in her throat. She felt her way over to the rows of beds and sank down between two of them, curling into as small of a ball as she could. 

The footsteps passed the medbay. Toph's pulse throbbed so insistently that she was sure anyone nearby could also hear it. She tried to control her breathing and make it as quiet as possible, lest she give away her hiding spot.

The door creaked shut.

Toph held her breath.

Silence. More silence. Whoever it was hadn't made it into the medbay before the doors closed. She had about five minutes of guaranteed safety. She slowly let out the breath she'd been trying to manage.

The air conditioning unit kicked on, and a new horror clawed its way through her chest. There was a _stupid fucking vent_ in the medbay. She felt her tears hit her cheeks before she even realized she'd been about to cry. The door was locked. The vent was unlocked. And exactly one person on the ship knew where she was. 

Waiting was agonizing, mostly because Toph didn't know what she was waiting on. The vent to swing open? The sweet release of death? Would the doors finally auto-open, only for whoever was following her to come in and find her? Fleetingly, she wondered if this was how her fallen crewmates had felt in their final moments. Had they known it was coming, or was this torture reserved for Toph alone? Did they even know who their killers were?

Toph also thought of her parents. The lump in her throat grew bigger. She didn't get along with her parents. She'd been fighting with them in the weeks leading up to the mission, so she didn't even tell them goodbye, assuming things would be back to normal once they'd all had time to cool down. Would they be heartbroken? Would they even care? More tears forced themselves out. 

The medbay door slid open. Toph buried her face in her knees.

A set of footsteps approached. She knew that they were different from the first set, but she also knew that there were two killers on board. She wouldn't be lured into a sense of false confidence. Over the roar of her own heartbeat, she heard a soft voice faintly humming a song she didn't recognize. The footsteps stopped abruptly.

"Spirits, Toph! You scared me! What are you doing just sitting in here with the door shut?"

_Katara._

Toph opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out was a choked sob. For as strong as she tried to be, this was her breaking point.

"Hey," Katara's voice was more gentle, "hey, what's wrong?"

Toph lost it completely, tears flowing freely, breaths coming in the form of choppy inhales that nearly choked her. "I don't want to die," she sobbed into her hands. "Some- someone was following me, and I was _so scared,_ and I don't want to die." 

Katara fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around the other woman, rubbing her back tenderly as she worked through her emotions. 

"I was _right there_ when it happened to Yue." She clutched at Katara. "Fuck, if they'd used the vent to the cafeteria instead of admin, it would've been me and Sokka instead." Toph buried her face in Katara's shoulder, still gasping around each sob that wracked her body. "I can't live like this. I want to go home."

"We will," Katara stroked through Toph's hair, hoping the action was soothing. "We're gonna make it. Ten more weeks and we'll make it."

"How- how can-"

"Breathe," Katara instructed patiently. "Just breathe. I'm not going anywhere."

Neither of them knew how long it took Toph to collect herself enough to push out the rest of her sentence. "How can you be so sure? I don't even know who to trust! Every time I think I've ruled someone out, something else happens, and then I question myself."

"Like what?"

"Like, the other day, out of nowhere Suki got me to do asteroids with her. We’ve been up here for this long, so why now? Why is she being so nice to me now? Where was this months ago?” Toph lost herself to tears again. Katara held her tighter.

“I think maybe you’re just cynical. She could have killed you then if she was going to at all, and I don’t think she would have.”

“But you don’t know," Toph sniffled. "No one does.”

She didn't need to hear that she was right. They both knew that she was. She didn't need validation from Katara, then or ever; she needed a fighting chance. She needed hope.

“We’ll make it home,” Katara promised again, more firmly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely LIVE for each and every one of your comments. You guys are the best. 
> 
> (Side note: At this point, even a few chapters back, some major hints were dropped. No worries if you don't pick up on them, all will be revealed in time.)


	10. spaces between us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catharsis between siblings, told primarily by the brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooh we're delving into trauma, baby

This whole captain gig was shaping up to be a whole lot more than Sokka bargained for.

There was no _what to do if aliens invade your ship_ section in the manual, and it was almost infuriating that he and Toph had even joked about that before the ship left Earth. There was no _what to do if said aliens kill two of your crew members, one of which you used to bang on the reg._ There was no _how to enforce law and order,_ or _when law and order is officially suspended,_ or _how to handle things if your ship seems to have a mind of its own._ In fact, there was very little guidance on how to prevent any of these fires from springing up. Just how to put some of them out.

Despite all of this, the control center cut him hardly any slack. Which is why he was walking to the medbay instead of to lunch.

He briefly rapped on the doorframe before walking right in. “I gotta give the White Lotus some sort of update other than ‘no one else has died.’ Do you have anything?”

Katara didn't tear her eyes away from her microscope. “Just the botched results.”

“You haven’t figured out whose tests showed up as inhuman yet?” He wasn't entirely sure that was possible, but if anyone could figure it out, it was Katara. He couldn't imagine she'd be more invested in anything other than their probability of living right now.

“Yeah," she picked her head up from the microscope and rubbed her eyes. "I was able to reverse-engineer some of my prior tests, and from what I can tell, the inhuman tests belong to numbers 10 and 12.” 

That should have been great news. _They knew who the aliens were._ Well, Katara knew, anyway. He didn't know why she looked so uncomfortable by the revelation. Anxious adrenaline shot through Sokka. He perched on the cot closest to her.

“Katara, I’m going to say something, and I don’t want you to think less of me for it.”

“Just say it.”

“There are no laws in space." That felt like a good place to start. "The only standards we _do_ have at this point are to do what it takes to bring everyone back alive. I know the number system is to ensure medical privacy, but right now I feel like finding out who these impostors are and keeping everyone else safe takes precedence over privacy rights.”

Oddly enough, Katara didn't look off-put by his statement. “I don’t think you want me to tell you. It’ll only make things worse.”

Sokka leaned forward insistently. “I need you to tell me.”

“I’m asking you to trust me.”

Trusting Katara was easy. He'd been doing it for almost their whole lives. He really didn't want to violate that trust, but she left him with very few options. “I’m ordering you to tell me.”

Katara swallowed whatever she'd been about to say. She rolled her chair over to her desk, grabbed a chart with a sticky note on it, and rolled closer to Sokka. She handed him the paper. “Number 12 is Haru. Number 10 is Yue.”

 _No fucking way._ The adrenaline crashed in Sokka's system, but the anxiety stayed. “That makes _no sense_.”

“Yeah, I know. And now you do, too." Katara watched him intently, waiting on some sort of further response. It never came. She rested a calm hand on his knee. "Look, I’ve thought about this, and the only thing I can think of is if someone else saw the first murder but kept their mouth shut, and then took justice into their own hands. That would explain why no one else has died.”

He looked up at her with dark eyes. “Your theory is someone watched Yue kill Haru, and then killed her for it.” 

She knew he'd hate that theory. “I can’t think of any other explanation. The computer doesn’t lie.”

“What if it could?” Sokka went over the chart data skeptically.

Katara rolled her eyes. “Now is _not_ the time for another AI conspiracy theory.”

“Not that," Sokka shook his head lightly, eyes raking over the page. "What if someone made the computer lie? If they hacked in and relabeled all of your data before wiping it, then when you restored it, it would revert to whatever they set it as.” He looked up at Katara expectantly.

She bit her lip. “I don’t know who else on this ship besides us would know how to do anything like that. Well, Azula probably would, but she’s got an alibi for both murders." She didn't miss the way he flinched at that last word. In that moment, she saw a glimpse of the Sokka she knew before everything started going wrong. She got up from her chair and sat down next to him on the cot. “Talk to me.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Not about the data." She eased the paper out of his hands and set it to the side. "I don’t want to talk to the captain. I want to talk to my brother.”

More of him - the real him - shined through his concerned look. “About what?”

“About you." Katara braced herself. "And about Yue. I think you’re still in denial about what happened.”

Just like that, she lost Sokka. His hand closed around the air. “She’s gone. Her killer’s not. It’s a simple as that.”

Katara shook her head. “You’re compartmentalizing again. This is just like when Mom-”

“This is _nothing_ like Mom.”

“You put on this brave face and pretended like everything was fine, and it wasn’t. We were _kids_ for La’s sake, and we’re not anymore, but the pain is just as real. You’re still allowed to feel it.”

“You think I don’t feel it?”

Katara grabbed him by the shoulders, unmoved by his half-assed confession. “I think you’re hiding it and I don’t know why! You won’t let anyone be there for you! You ran off on hunting trips with Dad, and now you’re running to find Suki every time something goes wrong, and you’re not okay!" He opened his mouth to say something, but she wasn't finished. "Have you even talked to Toph since it happened? Because she was in here two nights ago scared out of her mind, bawling her eyes out, and I didn’t think she knew how to cry." She didn't care about the tears pricking at her eyes even now. "You’re the only other person who can possibly understand how she feels, and you’re freezing her out with everyone else!”

Sokka quietly processed what his sister said. “You’re Toph.”

Katara wiped her blurry eyes on her sleeve. “Huh?”

“In this analogy." Sokka poked her in the shoulder. "You’re Toph. You’re upset because I wasn’t there for you when Mom died.”

Katara's brow furrowed. “No, there’s no analogy, this is about you needing to open up.”

“It can also about you, okay?" Sokka thumbed a tear away from Katara's cheek. "Can I talk to my sister instead of the doctor?”

She pulled him into a tight hug, just like when she fell off of her bike and skinned her knees, and when their mom didn't wake up in the hospital, and when she'd gotten her heart broken for the first time. For just a moment, she could pretend they were home, safe, and this was just another late night talk.

Sokka patted her on the back. “You're right,” he admitted. "I think about her every day. It _really_ fucking hurts."

“I know it does." Katara released him and wiped her eyes again. "Can we please talk about it?”

Sokka exhaled slowly. “Yeah, we can.”

\-----

The last time Zuko was alone with his sister, she was covered in someone else's blood and crying into his chest. 

The blood part checked out; he always assumed that day would eventually come. He'd never imagined the crying part in his wildest dreams. They were never _like that._ Their family didn't do touchy-feely, or vulnerability, or anything that could be portrayed as weakness. Zuko had the scar to prove it. 

Maybe Azula faked the whole thing. She might have taken advantage of a raw situation and manipulated him along with everyone else on the ship. His gut told him that wasn't the case. But if it wasn't, why had she let her guard down so quickly? Where did this newfound trust come from?

When they wound up alone in the upper engine, he decided to ask her about it.

“Are we good?”

Azula didn’t answer, more fascinated by the gasoline flowing into the engine than the sound of her brother's voice.

“It’s whatever if you want to say no," Zuko said, unlocking the safety bar on the engine itself. "I don’t care. I just need to know.”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

There was the tact Azula had lacked in their last interaction. “No, stop. I’m not playing mind games. Are we good?”

She still wouldn't look at him. “I’m not playing mind games either. I want to know why you’re asking.”

“You’ve always got to have all of the information before you answer, even if it’s about your feelings. There aren’t right answers when it comes to feelings.”

Azula scoffed at him. “You sound like that stupid grief counselor.”

“And you sound like Dad," Zuko shot back.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not to you it isn’t.”

Azula sighed loudly, like she was above having this conversation for the umpteenth time. “Here we go again. You’re in your own head. This is like when Mom disappeared and you thought it was Dad’s fault.”

“It _was_ his fault.”

“Not according to the judge.” Azula's eyes flickered. She finally looked at her brother. “Don’t tell me that’s why you tried to go to law school.”

It was Zuko's turn to scoff. “I didn’t _try to_ , I did.”

“And you quit.”

“I got cut off," he corrected, then muttered, "unlike you.”

Azula screwed the cap back onto the empty gas canister. “What did you think was going to happen, dum-dum?" Another one of her favored nicknames for him. "You blamed Dad for Mom going missing, and you went to law school of all things. Did you think he wouldn’t put it together?”

There were so many things wrong with her statement, Zuko didn't know which one to focus on. He knew she was just spouting rhetoric she'd picked up from Ozai or one of his cronies. “You have no idea what I was going to school for, do you?”

She crossed her arms defensively. “I lost track after corporate law. Did you really think you could single-handedly tear down the empire our family’s built?”

Briefly, yeah, he had. Those dreams were squandered early on, thus the reason he'd switched tracks so many times. No matter what he picked, another roadblock jumped in his path. Something clicked in Zuko's brain. Ozai didn't care enough about him to keep tabs on which field of study he was on. Someone had to have been feeding him information. “You thought I would," Zuko realized as he said it. "That’s why you went into the space program instead of climbing the ranks from the inside. You thought the company was going to go under.”

Azula's eyes narrowed. “Don't be ridiculous. I needed some sort of real world experience before applying. It doesn’t get more real than the hell we’re going through right now.”

She turned on her heel and left the upper engine. Pride and determination coursed through Zuko. Azula only walked away because he was right, and he knew he was right. Luckily, he also knew where she was headed next. Coincidentally, he was headed there as well. He made sure the upper engine was aligned correctly, slid the safety bar back into place, and walked to the lower engine. 

The words flew out of his mouth as soon as Azula came into his line of sight. “Child advocacy.”

She scowled at him. “I didn’t think you liked kids.”

“I don’t like abusive parental figures.”

Something about his words struck a nerve in her. Azula set the gas can down and leaned against the wall closest to Zuko. “I don’t know what happened to you, but I do know there’s a statute of limitations. Yours would have been up by the time you graduated.”

“Yours wouldn’t have.”

Zuko did extensive research into various legal precedents and obscure laws tucked into old, leather-bound books. In the best case scenario, involving Zuko flying through law school and doing nothing but studying the entire time, Azula would've been just shy of nineteen years old by the time he got into a courtroom. It was a finicky situation, given she'd be a legal adult, but any afflictions caused against her by Ozai would be able to be tried in court. 

Azula shrugged as if the thought had never occurred to her. “I’m not the one with a giant scar that a jury might count as compelling evidence.”

That may have been the first time she referenced his injury without making fun of it. Zuko shook his head in disbelief. “Even now, you’re still defending him. He can’t hear you, you know. You can just say it.”

“Say what?”

“Whatever it is you’ve been too afraid to say for your whole life. The truth. What you really think about him.”

Azula went silent again, picking up the gas can and going about fueling the lower engine. What did he really expect her to say? That she was sorry for terrible things their father may or may not have done behind closed doors? Plausible deniability was her only form of self-defense for the majority of her life, and she learned early to cling to it. It was the only way to stay in Ozai's good graces. She played the part, Zuko didn't. She was the favorite, Zuko wasn't. Infuriatingly, he didn't resent her for it. He _pitied_ her.

Finally, she spoke. “I’ve been saying it for years. You can throw out whatever hero complex you’ve been putting together. I don’t need saving. I’m not a child. And I think you’re mad at me because I’m not as damaged as you are. That’s why you wanted to know if we were good." The malice burned her throat. She stepped right up to Zuko, her low voice seething. "To answer your question, no, we’re not _good_ , and we won’t be until you get your head out of your ass. If you die before that happens, I’ll go to your funeral, but don’t count on me crying.”

Zuko stared straight down at her, unafraid. “If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with.”

A wicked, amused smile crossed Azula's face. She recapped the gas canister. “If I were going to kill you, I would've done it years ago.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, gang! I hope your 2021 is better than 2020 was!
> 
> Thank you so much again for reading, especially if you took time out of your day to read both of today's updates! I can't wait to hear what you think about it all. And if you're sick of the way things have been going, no worries! Someone else will die soon :)


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